okay i have a quick question. i have a laptop i use for datalogging and internet when i feel lazy and want to sit on the couch and surf. every know and then when it boots up it will run normal for about a minute or so but once it gets up and going it will flash a blue screen and reset. it will do that like twice and then everything willbe normal. the blue screen isn't the dreaded BSOD but it is a blue screen, can't read anything it says because it flashes really quick. anybody know what the problem might be? i think it might be a RAM or lack of more like it problem.

it is a compaq presario 1200
498mhz
88 mb RAM
20 Gb hd
running XP

i ordered more RAM but i ordered the wrong pin count so i'm pretty much assed out on that.

 

blue screen of death owns your computer. Windows sux big ***** sorry i couldnt help you out but i used to have that problem to and it sux. Your ram does look pretty low though. Is that correct 88 mb sdram im asuming i would start there sdram is pretty cheap now that theres ddr and the likes hope this helps

 

theres probebly somthing in your regestry thats messed up, or somthing in your start up loading with corrupted data. or you have allot of spyware and that old computer cant handle it. probebly your best bet would to be to start up in safemode and go through the registry deleting all of the on startup ----.

 

its a memory dump more then likely, you might have bad ram.i would use linux simply because it will run perfectly with bad ram that windows would normally vomit at.

 

how the hell is xp even running on that machine?

downgrade to 98 or get a linux distro like kain said.

 

if he gets linux he cant run uber

 

yeah i need to get more RAM which will probly fix it.
i don't think it is corrupt data or spyware because it is a fresh install of xp. the reason why i am using xp is it was the only os i could find besides 2003 server.

is there anywhere that i can find out how much ram my motherboard will support?

 

windows xp requires a minimum of 64 megs of ram, and microsoft reccomends 128. personally i wouldn't even bother with less than 256. judging by your system specs i wouldn't even bother with xp anyway. it'll be so damn slow that it will barely be useable. use windows 2000, install as much ram as you can find for cheap and call it good. anything more than that, just get a new laptop.

 

it is only acting wierd when i first start it up. it will reboot then do it again and then it will be normal. actualy i'm on the laptop right now and have been all morning. it runs better then i thought it would with xp. actually it runs better then it did with 98. i was just wondering what was causing it to reboot and flash the blue screen. kain said it was a memory dump so i will get more memory and continue to run xp.

 

I ran XP since it came out on my PII class Celeron with 128 megs of RAM, ran fine...