reinstall XP

My Dell Inspiron 1000 (12/04) has slowed down to the point of being useless (took over 26 hours to do an AVG scan) and I have decided to make a last-ditch effort to do a re-install of XP. It appears not to have a re-install partition.

Doing the re-install from the Reinstallation CD, as it finishes loading the drivers, it just instantly shuts down/turns off—no blue screen—just goes dead. It does it just after the screen comes up asking if I want to do a repair or reinstall, before I have a chance to hit anything. (I am running it without the mouse.)

Any thoughts? TIA

 

I did the Basic Computer Maintenance a year or so ago, and the machine improved markedly. Since then, I have pretty much kept up with running the scans, using CC, etc. but the performance has slowly degenerated to almost useless. The hard drive is approximately 50% full. The machine’s diagnostics shows nothing bad.

At your suggestion, I did a RAM test. Ran for about 30-40 minutes, 700%+/-, and came out no errors. Chkdsk revealed no errors.

So, should I give up and try to reinstall Windows from scratch, or do and fdisk??? While I would like to make the machine useful, I am willing to take some risks and then buy a new one if I have to.

 

Are you suggesting I run start_up_cpl running the computer “regularly”, as it now runs poorly, or rather, or as part of trying to do the reinstall?

 

I have run start_up_cpl on a regular boot-up of the machine. (I do not know how to get screenshots of the panel to post, but:

Startup (common) shows: Utility Tray, C:\windows\system32\sistray.exe
HKLM / Run shows: 1) BOC-427, and, 2) IntelliPoint (Mouse or touch pad, I think)

Everything else is empty.

I have been using CC to keep the start-up stuff on the lean side.

 

CC lists the same start-up items as I wrote previously, except that in addition, it shows SunJavaUpdateSched, which I have disabled.

RE: antivirus, etc. I had switched from AVG to Avast a few months ago b/c I had read that AVG was somewhat of a resource hog. I did reinstall AVG a couple of days ago for the sole purpose of doing a scan, and it took over 24 hours to run. I had also been using Ad-Aware and Search & Destroy, as well as occasionally running SpywareBlaster and SuperAntiSpyware scans. However, I basically have been undoing them all in preparation of possibly reinstalling Windows from scratch because the thing is so darned slow generally, and I have been unable to figure it out.

 

I never went without protection, and I never had more than one AV running at the same time. I uninstalled Avast and installed AVG jut to do a different scan. Nothing was finding anything wrong, yet the machine performance has continued to degenerate, so I figured I would use different products to see if anything wrong popped up, but, again, not at the same time.

This most recent messing around has been in preparation to basically re-do the machine, but, again, as I stated in my first post, I cannot even seem to get the reinstall to run.

 

The machine has had no protection for exactly the amount of time it took to find and download the start_up_cpl program which was suggested to me that I run. (I have been using my fine-running desk top for all these posts—not the sick laptop.) I have been using the MalWareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware programs, as appropriate, right along. They found nothing after the first time I used them a year or so ago when following the ‘Basic Computer Maintenance Everyone Should Do' Guide.

As I indicated at the beginning of this request for help, I have done everything I can along the way, and the performance has nevertheless slowly degenerated. While I could re-run the ‘Basic Computer Maintenance Everyone Should Do' Guide from scratch, the way the machine is running now, it would take days and it would likely find no errors, viruses, or malware. Maybe all this new Java and what-not is just a little too much for this poor old Celeron.

So… any ideas out there re: fully renewing the machine. (I will let the ram-checker run overnight, just for grins and giggles.)

 

I have thought for awhile that the hard drive could be a little bad. It just seems that the light is always on, going and going forever as it boots up, or as I wait for a program to load.

I can get a new one for $38 with the shipping. Not sure what to do… maybe wring my hands a little more, the buy a whole new one.

 

Hey there,

Havent got time to read all the posts here, I would look at the motherboards capacitors near the cpu, if its an older motherboard. Have a look for a bulge or even a tea / coffee like stain on top of the caps.

Verify the power supply voltages.

Check for any recent ms automatic updates - these arent always helpful as one might think. There was one that let our users log in using there passwords but had totally cleaned the users account mapped drives shortcuts etc..because it decided there was malware on the unit! No prompting to admin or the user for this to occur.

Xp has a protected mode where if it thinks its drivers or "core operating system files" are under attack or untoward alteration then it can do several things although I am not sure if shutting down / restarting to protect itself is a default or an option which can be set..something i vaguely remember from geek school.

anyways gluck

 

I have the same laptop same thing happend to me i changed the memory to a diffrent speed and it works fine. Do't go over a gig.