going to hell in a hand basket

i think my pc is on a slippery slope to oblivion. coincidently, oblivion is waiting for it to get fixed. here's the scoop.

i have a 2.8g p4, brand new 500w psu, saphire radeon x1600 pro, 160g hd, and up till last week 1g ddr 2700 running xp. a little behind the times i know but when it worked, it worked well.

I bought the new PSU off recomendations that i had a bad psu which was causing my pc to restart randomly. but...it still does

i'm down to 512 ram due to failure of one stick, my cd/dvd burner is wigging out. it will work with the first disk you put in then...nothing. i have to reinstall it to get it to work again. and now it wont complete a burn so i can't back up all my goodies before i wipe the fracking HD and start from scratch.

I'd just build a new one but I know how well this one runs when it works and would like to fix it, plus i'm a tight wad.

so

1. why is the pc restarting by itself
2. what's up with the system not liking the cd rom? (which by the way device manager say "this device is working properly")

thanx

 

Is there anything in the event viewer at the time the system resets?
Could be a ton of issues.. heat, bad ram, bad driver, I have seen many things cause random reboots.
The CD burner, well since you've been in the case lately recheck the cables, look for a new firmware, does it have this issue with every type of disk? manfactured data (software,games), CD-R, audio??

 

i dont know much about the event viewer. how does one open it? it shouldn't be heat, i have three fans and the temp control has never given any indication that i'm getting high temps. the stick of ram that i have left is good. i've checked it with mem test and some other program. as for the drivers, i couldn't tell you. it mainly restarts when i am playing games or trying to watch a movie but NOT when i am doing intense graphics work or shrinking a dvd (when the cd worked)

the cd rom. first disk of the day will work fine as long as i'm just reading or running it. supsequent disks require reinstall before explore will reconize them. however, the device manager says the device is working properly. all the cables seem fine. no damage and they are all connected properly. i even switched it around to see if that was the problem.

I have ordered a seagate 250gig hd 16m cashe, from outpost.com for $50 (good deal if you're in the market) to try a fresh instal. it should be here on monday. my hd is getting old after all. in fact i would say it's at least 3 years old. could that have something to do with my problems?

anyhow thanks for you input

 

event viewer is in control panel, admin tools. check it out.