System hard locks a lot! running winXP.

[alfhead]

I'm not sure if this is a problem with WinXP, but just recently my computer has been hard locking very often. This would happen either in windows, right before windows starts up after the winxp logo, right before the winxp logo, and right after the drives are detected before windows boots. Does this sound like a software problem, or a hardware one? These problems started to occur after I had to cold restart my comp after a crash. these are my specs:

shuttle ak31 rev3
amd TBird B (10*100) @ 1000
256 crucial 2100 ECC/Registered
alpha 8045
AIW Radeon
Promise ultra 100 ide card
3com ethernet adapter
250 watt enhance PSU

When installing my heatsink, I had to bend back a capacitor, which is in contact with the heatsink. could this be causing problems?

 

[alfhead]

bump

 

[hmagoo]

make sure you try with only video card, hard drive, cdrom installed in order to isolate the problem.

my guesses in order:

0) how is the temperature on your cpu?
1) 3com NIC is conflicting with something
2) is the shuttle the sis 735 chipset? try a forum specific to shuttle, or check out ECS specific forums for problems getting that chipset to work. I think amdmb.com has some.
3) power supply, not enough juice
4) IRQ conflict, try changing positions of your PCI boards.
5) try using a standard keyboard and mouse (if you are using something different)
6) the problem is sporadic as I understand your explanation, so hardware would be my first guess. But you can always try a clean install of XP. One piece of hardware followed by reboot, every time.
good luck

 

[alfhead]

ok, it's fixed.. looks like some system files got corrupted. a reinstall of XP took care of the crashes