computer doesn't boot/ computer restarts

[Jokerswild]

Okay, I'm stuck...Hail Mary Time

I have a GW2K Pent 2 233mhz dino PC that my mom uses for Email purposes. One day she turns it on and nothing happens...NOTHING. Any Ideas?

So I reset the CMOS jumper to clear the settings and that had no affect. So then I figure I will replace her PC with the one that I built a couple years ago. This one has been working fine but now I will turn it on and every now and then it just restarts out of nowhere...with out warning and it is really starting to irritate me. I have reason to believe it maybe a RAM problem because something similar happened a while ago. But anyway, I formatted the HD becasue it needed it anyway, reinstalled the OS (windows XP) and thought I was in the clear and then bam! it restarts....a message pops up when rebooted "this system has recovered from a serious error" and it says something about the NTFS.sys file...I don't know XP into depth but my file system is FAT and I can't understand the problem? HELP!!! I'm running out of PC's!!!

[elmers]

What are the system specs ?

[Jokerswild]

MSI KT3 Ultra 2 Series mobo w/ via kt333 chipset
Athlon XP2000
DDR pc2100 256 mb
40 gb western digital 7200 rpm
ge force 2 64mb

I adjusted a setting in the CMOS that allowed 2.6 volts to go to the RAM and changed another setting to boot to OS/2 and that seems to have corrected it FOR NOW. I'm leaving it run all night and making it play a movie just to be sure.

[elmers]

Is it working ok under os/2 ? What id do is check that everything is snapped in properly like ram, vid card, etc... Heres a question you mention having a dual boot so 2 hd in case + cdrom + vid + sound maybe a power supply problem. Had one blow up on me a couple of months ago, showing the same symptoms before it went, when I added another cd and hd. Just guessing really tho.

Another thought... have you looked at the mobo when you set up the pc. Heard about peoples capacitors leaking and "bulgeing".

[jmichna]

Besides bulging capacitors, couple other things to investigate:
- Make sure CPU's HS is making good contact; clean out any dust bunnies
- Failing (or marginal) power supply (use MBM to check line voltages)
- Most ram can take +0.2v, even +0.3v over-volting. I run all my ram at 2.80vdimm just for stability's sake.
- Reseat HD's IDE cables at both HD and mobo