Boot Drive Priority

I have no idea what is going on with my computer,last month it started giving me problems on which drive it wanted to boot from,I have winsXP pro with SP3 on C/drive sata,and i have another drive E ide ,with no operating system,
it kept making me chose which drive to boot from,I actually went into Bios and told it to use the E drive and it worked for a while,but i ended up trying to get it too boot from either and it didn't work,so i've reinstalled wins xp pro and it has run fine for close to a month,
but it locked up when i was watching a vid and i had to do a restart to get it to run,it has been real squirrelly since then,asked me about the boot Priority again,which i went with the C/drive and it loaded real slow and would lockup when it got to the desk top,
so i tried to run a check disk and it didn't run after after many reboots,but it started and ran 2 days later,and been doing OK since,still seems slow,and today i have ran all sorts of spyware removal and antivirus programs and found nothing
but i have had problems with my E mail,outlook,made me do the smpt again,but its working now,the power settings on my moniter are strange,its set to turn off after 20 minutes,sometimes it works and sometimes it don't,and on the start menu there is no recent programs ran showing up

And this is like my 3rd computer in the last 2 years,all motherboard problems I think,i got this one on UIP supply,sorry for the long post,any help would be greatly appreciated
Oh and on other problem is with my video card,it's a nvidia 8400gs,i did a wins update and it told me I needed a hardware driver,so I went to Nvidias website and downloaded the driver and installed it,all i got was a black screen,i went into safe mode and removed it and reinstalled my old nvidia driver and it works fine

beats me

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major

Many of your problems can be caused be a failing or faulty power supply. Bad PSUs can cause lock ups, slow performance, erratic behavior, graphical problems, etc. A bad PSU can also damage other components resulting in data loss or a complete system rebuild. Another possibility is a failing hard drive. I strongly recommend that you visit your hard drive maker's web site, download their diagnostic tool, and run the extended in-depth tests to determine if your hard drive is healthy. All the info about how to run the tests and how to interpret the results can be found at your HD maker's site also. You should also run some type of system monitoring software to see if your system voltages and temperatures are OK. Most motherboard manufacturers have these types of programs for free download, so check your board maker's site. You can also get the same info from the freeware HWmonitor. Run it in the background minimized while doing your regular computing for an hour or two or three. It will record the high and low for each item so you can see what's going on....

 

thanks for the help dlb,i ran a check on the HDs,Seagate for Wins program and it said they both passed,i did the short and long tests
I'll take it to my friends and get him to check the power supply in a day or two
I've ran the HW montior program,but I'm not sure what I'm looking at I saved it too my desk top,but it did not save the min and max reading,

ITE IT87 hardware monitor
min max
Voltage sensor 0 1.28 Volts [0x50] (CPU VCORE) 1.14V 1.33V

Voltage sensor 1 1.62 Volts [0x65] (VIN1) 1.60V 1.63V

Voltage sensor 2 3.14 Volts [0xC4] (+3.3V) 3.01V 3.18V

Voltage sensor 3 4.92 Volts [0xB7] (+5V) 4.92V 4.95V

Voltage sensor 4 11.71 Volts [0xB7] (+12V) 11.58V 11.84V

Voltage sensor 5 -7.68 Volts [0x78] (-12V) -7.74V -7.36V

Voltage sensor 6 -5.18 Volts [0x51] (-5V) -5.18V -5.12V

Voltage sensor 7 4.73 Volts [0xB0] (+5V VCCH) 4.73V 4.76V

Voltage sensor 8 3.30 Volts [0xCE] (VBAT) 3.30V 3.30V


I copied the volt sesnsors from the file and typed in the min and max and I have been running the computer for about 3 hours or soo too,surfed the net and played a game

here are the temps


Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

ACPI hardware monitor min max

Temperature sensor 0 47°C (116°F) [0xC82] (THRM) 40 c 58 c

Dump hardware monitor 103 f 136 f



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

GeForce 8400 GS hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 57°C (134°F) [0x39] (GPU Core) 53 c 58 c

Dump hardware monitor 127 f 136 f



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

Maxtor 6Y080M0 hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 43°C (109°F) [0x2B] (HDD) 38 c 44 c

Dump hardware monitor 100 f 111 f



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

MAXTOR STM3200820A hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 38°C (100°F) [0x26] (HDD) 36c 39c

Dump hardware 96 f 102 f monitor


Temperature sensor 2 47°C (116°F) [0x2F] (TMPIN2) 40c 59c

103 f 138 f

I all so typed in the min and max temps too


and thanks again

 

and since we are talking about power supply and there has been numerous motherboards die here,My friend that works on my computer was asking why they keep dieing,I told another friend,who is very good with household wiring, and he said that I was probally getting spikes since I'm the at the end of the line with a transformer at the pole,I'm the only one on this line from the main power lines and yes i do live in the sticks
I don't know if this is true or not,but it does make sense,I'm going to get a checker that you plug into the wall outlets just to see if I'm grounded good or not,and come to think of it there has been a bunch of Direct TV satellite boxes that would die every thunderstorm till they hooked up a ground to my trailer and moved the dish into the front yard with a metal pole
But I've got a uninterrupted power supply,and it does click on quite often,could the surge protection on it be shot ? and is it OK to run another surge protector with the UIP ? it says not to use one and I haven't,but would it matter ?
like i said beats me