What's the sign of a bad CPU?

[amheck]

Well, this all started last nite. Ever since I installed SP2, I've had problems searching with IE. I went to uninstall SP2 and came back 30 minutes later, and I think my PC had restarted, but everything was acting very weird.

After a few reboots this am, it's still messed up. SP2 is still listed in the Uninstall Programs sections, however, when trying to uninstall it, it just hangs. I also don't have any taskbar, START button anymore. IE will load, but alot of the bottons on webpages don't work. Some programs won't even load at all. It's pretty much hit and miss as to whether something works or not. Then, I found my way into Device Manager where there is a yellow exclamation next to my CPU. Could that be the cause of all this?

I initially thought it was weird timing that it would fail when I was messing with SP2. And I would think either the whole computer would not work with a bad CPU, but it seems to be able to do some things, so I'm a little stumped. Unfortunately, I don't have an extra P4 around to test with.

Any ideas?

TIA,
Aaron

 

[akaricke]

When I installed Service Pack 2 I got the blue screen and instant reboot every time I tried to start my computer. Started in safemode and uninstalled it by doing a system restore now everything works fine.

 

[amheck]

I tried starting on safemode, and my computer is just about as unuseable in there as in normal operation. I don't even have a way (I can find) to get to the control panel to uninstall SP2.

I have never used system restore. Can you possibly tell me how to do that?

When starting up in safe mode, I get a prompt saying press YES to enter safe mode, and NO if I want to do a system restore. If I press NO, I get a pop-up msg saying that it cannot do a system restore at this time. Is there another way to do this?

I'm still curious as to what a bad CPU would do.

 

[akaricke]

Some other members had similar problems with SP2
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...0594&enterthread=y


If you dont find a good answer in that thread you can do the system restore.

System restore is used to return system settings of your computer to an earlier time.

Simply click on start>programs>accessories>system tools>system restore. Choose to restore to an earlier time and pick one from the calendar before you installed SP2. It will actually tell you on the save points what change had been done at that date.

Good Luck!
Rick

 

[amheck]

THanks. I'll check out that thread. One problem I'm having, however, is that I can't get to my Start menu. Is there any other way to get there? Does this have to be done in Safe Mode?

 

[akaricke]

System restore doesn't have to be done in safe mode.

Not sure how else to get there. You said it wouldnt work when you tried to choose it during startup?
Might be a device conflict with SP2. You could try removing some of your pci cards as a last resort to maybe get it to start enough to run restore. I am really not sure. Sorry.

My computer would flash blue and immediately restart when I installed SP2. I had to use safe mode to do system restore and it works fine now.

 

[RelaxTheMind]

why dont you just do a repair install of xp. It will just set all your updates back to what it was before and you just have to run windows update again. although... i wouldnt get sp2 unless you need it.

vicflo

 

[amheck]

I've never done a repair, either. Does that just involve booting up with the WinXP CD and choosing a repair option?

 

[Tiamat]

yes, the winxp cd installer has a "repair" option. I have never seen such an extensive windows screw up as you have mentioned. You may ahve to redo windows. Try the repair first tho.

 

[superHARD]

It's called Fdisk and Format...the two F's...and don't reinstall SP2!