My XP2000+ has developed the following ailments and I'm wondering if this could be a hardware issue or the result of a virus or worm attack. Advice needed.
1. Gomez Peer has been triggering Java errors and re-starts about every 3 hours. The error says Java has caused an error and will re-start.
2. Hard drive is 80 Gb WD and is about 50% full. Opening Windows Explorer takes much longer than usual - several seconds to display directory contents. This used to be much quicker response.
3. I emptied IE6 temp files, ran AdAware 6 and Spybot Search and Destroy, defragged using Diskeeper registered version and re-booted with chkdsk /f option.
4. Now this computer randomly crashes. I'd be in the middle of writing an e-mail or a Word document and whoosh, black screen, computer re-starts.
5. Latest symptom - note things are deteriorating here! - when it rebooted it went to the Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking etc screen. I selected Start Windows Normally and when I clicked on my User Name to enter Windows (XP Pro Sp1) it gave a warning that my AVG 7 (registered AVG version - Anti Virus Grisoft) was not loaded. When I said load it the computer re-booted.
6. Much worse - it refused to boot, even Safe Mode bombed out.
7. Critical - I tried using the WinXP-PE CD and booting from that and running a Restore. This gave various errors.:
<windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe not found
then,
nv4_disp.dll pagefault in nonpaged area Stop 0x0000007E with a Blue Screen
then,
i386\ntkrnlmp.exe error 4
followed by,
D1 driver_IRQL not less or equal

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