Power, motherboard, & Windows Explorer

My problems seem to revolve around these three general areas. I hope that
readers of this post can assist. My system is a 4 year old MSI 845E Max
board running XP Home SP2. 2GHz 640 MB RAM (Crucial). Pioneer 106 DVD-RW
and generic CD reader. 2 HD's, Maxtor 250 and WD 120 & External WD 250.
I've used 3 programs (1 full version, 2 shareware) either spyware/adware or
virus scans and they've cleaned out all they can. I'm using an APC battery
backup and these problems began occuring a short time after I installed it.

Problems began a few months ago when my monitor would go out unexpectedly
(it did as I was writing this). The picture would seem to zoom in rapidly
before going out completely. Turning off and waiting a few minutes before
restarting monitor would usually restore picture. After that, my computer
began restarting on it's own and my DVD burner began dying mid-burn as well
as at one point, not showing up in Windows Explorer (I swapped it's power
supply with that of CD reader and then both worked fine - switched back to
original and both worked again). Could these be symptoms of a faulty power
supply? Bad motherboard?

As far as Windows Explorer goes, in the beginning, while browsing over
specific files on the external HD, my Windows Explorer would freeze and the
"Dr. Watson's Postmortem Debugger" message would come up upon Cntl-Alt-Del.
That has since spread to include any folder under Windows Explorer. CD or
DVD folders are especially problematic (but that's been an issue since I got
the computer). When possible, I just open the default program pertaining to
whatever file I'm looking for.

I'm still using the system as I speak, so it hasn't croaked yet. I've
endured failed HD's in the past and have lost GB's upon GB's of data, so my
tolerance of such a problematic necessity of daily life is being stretched
thin.

Hope y'all can help.

"Redface" <Redface.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6690E05C-B934-4FAD-8F5E-69FE2FBA0EAF@microsoft.com...
> My problems seem to revolve around these three general areas. I hope that
> readers of this post can assist. My system is a 4 year old MSI 845E Max
> board running XP Home SP2. 2GHz 640 MB RAM (Crucial). Pioneer 106 DVD-RW
> and generic CD reader. 2 HD's, Maxtor 250 and WD 120 & External WD 250.
> I've used 3 programs (1 full version, 2 shareware) either spyware/adware
> or
> virus scans and they've cleaned out all they can. I'm using an APC
> battery
> backup and these problems began occuring a short time after I installed
> it.
>
> Problems began a few months ago when my monitor would go out unexpectedly
> (it did as I was writing this). The picture would seem to zoom in rapidly
> before going out completely. Turning off and waiting a few minutes before
> restarting monitor would usually restore picture. After that, my computer
> began restarting on it's own and my DVD burner began dying mid-burn as
> well
> as at one point, not showing up in Windows Explorer (I swapped it's power
> supply with that of CD reader and then both worked fine - switched back to
> original and both worked again). Could these be symptoms of a faulty
> power
> supply? Bad motherboard?
It is more likely to be a bad battery backup if your monitor gets its power
from the battery backup. If not, the power supplies in both monitor and
computer are suspect.
>
> As far as Windows Explorer goes, in the beginning, while browsing over
> specific files on the external HD, my Windows Explorer would freeze and
> the
> "Dr. Watson's Postmortem Debugger" message would come up upon
> Cntl-Alt-Del.
> That has since spread to include any folder under Windows Explorer. CD or
> DVD folders are especially problematic (but that's been an issue since I
> got
> the computer). When possible, I just open the default program pertaining
> to
> whatever file I'm looking for.
I would suspect the battery backup or the external HDD power supply.
Freezing usually means that the source of the data has quit sending same.
>
> I'm still using the system as I speak, so it hasn't croaked yet. I've
> endured failed HD's in the past and have lost GB's upon GB's of data, so
> my
> tolerance of such a problematic necessity of daily life is being stretched
> thin.
>
> Hope y'all can help.
>
This sounds like a marginal system in more than one way.
Jim