Nothing but blue screens troubling me..

Post #230,578 by Meerkat 10/23/05 5:51:10 PM Reply	Nothing but blue screens troubling me.. So I woke up this morning and stumbled over to the PC (Win XP Pro), to see it was doing its best to reboot. Over and over and over. Every time it dies, it's with the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, and it also complains about CLASSPNP.SYS. That's about all it'll do, can't boot into any kind of safe mode, etc. So is this a common virus tactic (my first assumption) I haven't installed any software in the last week or so - I would have thought (hoped) any software issues would already have manifested themselves. I know this isn't exactly chock-full'o'detail, but any pointers on how to go on from here? (Apart from load the shiny new Ubuntu disk I downloaded the other day ? :) Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #230,581 by Andrew Grygus 10/23/05 6:08:11 PM Reply	Does it boot in safe mode? If not . . . . . the only thing you can probably do is reinstall. First try a repair install. Find your license code (should be on the sticker) and get it ready - you only get one try here. Boot on the XP CD - you get the choice of Install or Repair, take "Install". It will then find existing installations. Select the existing installation and take R for repair at this point. It will then go through the reinstall. If that doesn't work you'll have to do a full reinstall taking "Install" at the second question and reinstall all your software. If it says it can't find an existing installation (even though you know very well there is one because it boots and crashes), you'll have to do the full install no matter what. I don't know a way to get it to change its mind. Of course there's the possibility you have a hardware problem. That's not often the problem in my experience, but sometimes it is. If the full reinstall doesn't work it probably is, but by then you have to reinstall all your software after fixing the hardware problem. Others may have other suggestions. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #231,432 by jb4 10/28/05 6:24:07 PM Reply	Have tried Repair several times w/ W2K And have never had it work. YMMV, G'Luck! jb4 shrub●bish (Am., from shrub* + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf.* BULLSHIT
Post #231,436 by Andrew Grygus 10/28/05 6:54:01 PM Reply	Had it work about 20% of the time . . . . . generally to recover functionality after removing serious worms - it patches the wormholes, sometimes. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #230,585 by Another Scott 10/23/05 7:03:10 PM Reply	Sounds a little like this thread... [link\|http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:Zu3Geh2lm3IJ:www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Q_21568625.html+CLASSPNP.SYS+crash&hl=en&client=firefox-a\|Google cache]. Scroll down. Bad RAM? Overheating? Is your power supply fan running? If I had to diagnose the hardware I'd start with the power supply and work from there. Have a Knoppix or MEPIS or similar bootable/installable Linux CD handy if you can. (Ubuntu comes in 2 versions - bootable and installable.). HTH. Best of luck! Cheers, Scott.
Post #230,588 by Steve Lowe 10/23/05 8:25:09 PM Reply	Verify no hardware issues and reinstall I had a machine that acted similarly, turned out to be a power supply. Try to boot a live Linux CD and run it for awhile. That should let you know if everything works :) -- Steve [link\|http://www.ubuntulinux.org\|Ubuntu]
Post #230,674 by Silverlock 10/24/05 3:27:32 PM Reply	That stop error almost always points to hardware/drivers The MS technet article can be found [link\|http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmd_stp_hwpg.asp\|here]. Scroll down for "Resolving the Problem" section and links to more detailed articles. ----------------------------------------- George W. Bush and his PNAC handlers sent the US into Iraq with lies. I find myself rethinking my opposition to the death penalty. --Donald Dean Richards Jr.
Post #230,692 by Meerkat 10/24/05 5:08:44 PM Reply	Thanks for all the advice so far. I didn't have much time yesterday, but I tried my Ubunutu Live CD, and everything works fine with that. I also confirmed that at least the HD is fine - all my data is still there, so I'm pretty happy about that. Let's see how the drama unfolds over the next few days...! Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #231,476 by Meerkat 10/29/05 6:10:33 AM Reply	All fixed - it was bad RAM. Weird - never seen RAM do that before - that is, actually die while the system was up. Found out it was the RAM by connecting an old IDE drive with (by chance) Win98 on it. It wouldn't boot with it , just whinged about Divide by Zero errors. But I then booted it up in safe mode, and it said it couldn't load the XMS memory driver... due to dodgy RAM. As luck would have it, my PC uses the same RAM as the Mac Mini, so I swapped out the 512 stick from the PC, and put in the 256 that originally came with my Mac Mini. Lo and behold, it boots happily and all's well. (Except for it living on 256 MB RAM til I get some more...) Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.

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