Modem & Display Adapter Vanish and Reappear

[funcrew]

Help Needed! I built a new PC 2 weeks ago (my first and probably last one):

KT333 Mobo with AMD Athlon 2400+ CPU, 300W PS
512MB PC2700 RAM (correct for this Mobo)
AGP NVidia Geforce4 MX420 video card w/fan
PCI Generic sound card
PCI Netgear ethernet card
Maxtor 40GB HD
Generic CD-RW
External Zoom modem on Com3
4 total fans, lots of air

Installed WinXP and everything worked fine. Got a worm/virus the first time connected to Internet. Reloaded WinXP WITH virus protection this time, and removed all infected files.

System works fine for a few days and multiple on-off-reboot cycles. Then the modem and display adapter disappear from Device Manager, so can't dial-up or get OpenGL on games.

Modem:
I can uninstall Com3 and Com4, then run the "add new device" wizard and the modem comes right back OK.

Display Adapter:
Trying to run the vendor's install CD yields the error: "No driver found for your hardware." No display adapter appears in device manager.

The weird part:
Both faults appear together. If I patiently shut down the computer, restart, and check device manager, after 2-3 tries, both devices reappear in device manager. The modem dials just fine, and OpenGL runs on the games. I am not adding or removing any hardware or software.

Other possibly related symptoms: Entire machine will occasionally freeze up, especially in games. Unresponsive to all key comands and front panel buttons, have to turn power off by rocker switch.

If I can't get a handle on this, I'll have to sell this rig on Ebay to someone more knowledgable, and just get a Dell that comes set up for PC civilians such as myself.

Thanks for any advice or ideas!

[Brainchild]

Have you tried to use the system with the modem disconnected from the computer?You may have some type of IRQ/hardware/driver issues between the modem and the video card.
Having the video card lose the drivers isn't all that uncommon,I have a system the same way.After it's all setup it works fine, but If I change something I have to reload the video drivers.It's always been that way.

[John Prophet]

You might have to start all over, lol.

Get the blaster patch on a floppy.....load it before you ever go online and turn on the xp firewall..then go straight to the windows update site.

On the video card , maybe dont try to run an install cd, just get the latest driver off their website..burn it to a cd and have it ready for the rebuild.

Or if you want to try to fix it without a rebuild..boot off the cd and do a "repair" on the install....not the first "repair" (the first repair option is just the recovery console..so hit "enter" there and go to the install and it will search for the windows install already on the hard drive and it will give you an option to repair it)

JP

[HeadBand]

for the front panel thing if you are new to xp you should know that you have to hold it down but if that wont work you may have a problem on the connection to the motherboard

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by HeadBand
for the front panel thing if you are new to xp you should know that you have to hold it down but if that wont work you may have a problem on the connection to the motherboard

If the system worked before this stuff started happening, I doubt that.

Sounds like what ws already mentioned, either a virus or a hardware conflict.

Try completely removing the modem from the computer. Then reboot and see if the graphics card fails. Play some UT for a while or something. The problem you report with the games freezing sounds like that same problem.