Windows My PC is on death's door - odd XP errors

I am at the end of my rope with my system. My system was functioning until I changed PC cases. I am particular about anti-static wrist straps etc and take the usual precautions. Previously, my PC was slowish but I think that it just needed a reformat. Post case change, I have had several odd errors. It led me to reformat the hard disk and since I wanted more space, I bought a new 250GB SATA drive.

I get all manner of BSOD errors, usually surrounding sysdata.xml and some other file, and I am most prone to it when I use DVDDecrypter, MS Word or Nero. Since they are mainly the only progs on my drive I cannot be sure if it is flaky with everything or not. And also, the computer screen goes black and restarts automatically with no warning. Thinking it was the drive; I installed on my new SATA and get the same issue. I have installed SP2 and still the same issue. I have also had GPF errors: C0000005 occurred in module ACSUI.DLL @ O2EA83CD and failed to initiaise properly when installing AOL 9. And now the weirdest thing is that when I try to reinstall I get an error in the process that says the file copied to the hard disc is incorrect. If I hit enter to retry, the file is copied on the second try with no problems but this is obviously having a serious effect.

In order to trouble shoot this, I have tried everything. Tried two different gfx cards, two different hard disks, installed using separate optical drives, different memory configurations. The only thing that seems (and I say seems with some scepticism) is that I stripped the system down so that only the gfx card, DVD drive and hard disk were connected and the errors seemed less frequent. I still couldn't install AOL but I didn't get kicked out of windows with now warning as regular.

So the way I see it, it is either;

a) motherboard - maybe damaged in the move process
b) PSU

Any ideas? Full spec;

AMD 2500
768mb PC 3200 (kingmax)
Abit KT7 KT600 motherboard
80gb IBM PATA
205gb Hitachi SATA
NEC 2500A DVDRW
Leadtek Geforce4 Ti-4400 256mb ram
420W Thermaltake PSU


Thanks peeps....

 

It sounds most definately like a memory error. If you have more than one stick of memory, try taking one out - it is a pain in the rear to find which stick may be at fault, but at the end of the day it's worth it. It might just be worth taking the ram out, blowing the sockets, make sure the contacts are clean and then give it a go.

But going on the information you've given - memory error, I'd say.

 

I ran memtest086 for about 3 hours over the weekend and got no errors. I thought it would bring something up in that time and that was with both PC3200 sticks. The thing is that I also tried running it with the PC2700 memory that I'd been using for over a year and it still had these errors.

 

when you switched cases, did you maybe short out something on the mobo?

i had a friend that put a new mobo in his system, all excited and anxious to try out a faster mobo (this was a 440bx board ... memories) and forgot the standoffs. hit the power, and poof!

 

That is what I'm afraid of. To be honest...I suspected that from the start but it would be costly if I sent the mobo back to the shop and it wasn't. Does VIA or ABIT do a test for the intrcacies of a mobo?