need help with comp!!!

[gnef]

<I posted this in the technical support section, but haven't received any replies, and from what i have observed, there are a lot more people reading this section, so hopefully i will get more replies posting in here...>

Hey, guys, I am helping my friend with his comp.

I helped him select the components... so i am liable for how his comp runs... heh... and also troubleschooting, which i don't mind when i know what the problem is...

but here is his comp config:

amd 1700+ (old packaging, not green) retail with hsf
epox 8kha+ (not sure of bios date, but pretty recent)
256 MB of ram, crucial
radeon ve oem
80 GB western digital HDD (i believe it's western digital, he got it retail at B&M w/ rebates, so i am not entirely sure of brand, but know it's 80 GB)
lite-on 24x10x40x
lite-on 16x dvd
evercase case - forgot which one, but black with grey trim.
[edit] i forgot that he also uses the turtle beach sc sound card, not onbaord ac '97 [/edit]
w2kpro

this is the error he is getting:

Stop: 0000218 c400218 [registry file failure]
The registry cannot load the HIV(file): \systemroot\system32\config\software\
Or its log or alternative.
It is corrupt or absent or not writable

Another four lines ? but unreadable because the computer restarts immediately.


do you guys have any idea what is causing this problem?

i am leaning towards the ram, and told him to do memtest overnight to see if that is the error, but is there anything else which could be causing this error? btw, it has happened about 4-5 times already, and we have had to reformat each time. ERD doesn't work.

TIA,

-Mel

 

[Ionizer86]

Could be HDD, could be ram. I dunno. Side note: the evercase is the 4252. I've got that one, except mine's white

To help diagnose error, turn off autoreboot upon error. Forgot how to do so, but rt click my comp and go to system properties. From there on, I have no clue; I'm using XP now.

 

[gnef]

Yes, I would do that, except, i can't, er, he can't even get into windows. From what he told me over the phone, it is after the intialization screen (the one with the white vertical stripes on the bottom of the screen), and then the error happens before the logon stuff.

tried last known good configuration, didn't work.

tried safemode, didn't work.

this has happened multiple times.

but if it is the HDD, then what exactly would be wrong? and how would it only "corrupt" the registry? wouldn't the entire thing be crapped out?
and how exactly would i diagnose that? because the computer had been running for a while, and we had thought it was ok because the other times it had happened almost immediately after the comp was setup, sometimes after upgrades and such, but usually soon after complete build and OS and drivers had been installed.

thanks for the suggestions.

memtest has been going for almost an hour so far without errors. hmmmm, so i am not sure, he will continue to run it tho...

thanks,

-Mel

 

[yazz]

first, i say you run the Western Digital diagnostics on the harddrive. second, try another video card. how long does it take to recieve this error? do you remember the last thing you did on the computer before this error occured? This error means that your registry HIVE, loader, kernel, HAL, and boot drivers exceeded 13MB. Did you install Norton AntiVirus or EZCD Creator on your system? Sometimes when a driver fails to load it will corrupt the registry in this manner. try flashing your BIOS to the latest version and using the latest VIA drivers. i have also seen MS Flight Simulator crash XP in the same way because of a failed install. here are some links to help you out.


http://is-it-true.org/nt/nt2000/atips/atips118.shtml

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q265509&id=KB;EN-US;q265509

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q151247

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q156640

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q303012

 

[strider7]

I had the same error message. xp pro xp 1800 with ddr. And it was one stick of bad ram(crucial). Removed bad stick and problem solved.

 

[yazz]

yeah, definitely try another stick of RAM.

 

[yazz]

if none of that works then your motherboard may have a bad Front Side Bus.

 

[gnef]

First of all, this is my friends comp, and i do not have immediate ability to check stuff on his comp right now.

i will forward this stuff to him tho.

and a bad FSB? how does that work?

and how do you set the registry file larger? i did it in another version of windows, but i can't remember how, and haven't done it on w2kpro at all.

thanks for the links to the microsoft pages. i will try to look through them.

oh yea, he ran the diagnostics, nothing.

memtest came up with nothing after about five passes through the tests.


so basically, all i think i need to know right now, is how to increase the size of the registry?

-Mel

 

[yazz]

increasing the size of the registry will not make a difference in this case. your registry hive is too big to fit into memory upon bootup or corrupted from a failed driver/software installation--that is if this is the problem. maybe your motherboard's FSB is sending bad signals and corrupting everythiing after a few reboots.

 

[gnef]

wouldn't memtest see this though?

IIRC, memtest tests the cpu - chipset - memory, and hence would have to test the FSB as well, so wouldn't it recognize the misplaced bits?

-Mel

 

[yazz]

i do not know of a single software Diagnostic program that can find every error on a motherboard.... but you could be right.... i am just saying, do not rule out the board yet. if you can get the system back up after reading what i wrote and my links then there is probably nothing wrong with the hardware.
good luck

 

[gnef]

Ok. good deal.

my friend is reading these now...

so i hope he will read through those links, as well as take this advice into consideration.

friend - "hello, are you there? are you listening to me? wicked..."

haha, inside joke.

thanks for the advice and assistence, we will see if this works in a few days or so, whenever we have enough time to play around with computers... ah well...

-Mel