Computer question

[lautray]

Got a problem with my old desktop: It keeps resetting itself. It used to boot ok & work for a while but now doesn't get much past the initial BIOS check thingy. Won't actually get to the desktop anymore (XP Pro). Could it be the motherboard? CPU? Hard drive? It's quite a few years old (P4) & I'd be happy to bin it but want to get some things off it before I do. Have opened it up & given it a clean.

Anything I can try?

Advice appreciated.

[Ryzz]

Hey lautray, can you be a bit more specific as to WHEN it reboots? Are you getting a blue screen of death (big blue screen with STOP written at the top). What happens if you press F8 as soon as the BIOS screen finishes and say "Last known good configuration" or "Safe Mode", do these make a difference?

[firebug]

Mine was doing that for a while Eric, turned out to be the RAM card had taken a dump. The RAM was too small (512) for the amount of crap I was asking it to do. We since replaced the card with another 512 and have had no issues since. We will jump to a 1Mb RAM soon...

[MID02K]

If you have your windows cd Eric, you can try repairing your installation.

[Luke@WSP]

Hey mate,

More than likely the BIOS battery, the small button battery located on the motherboard.

[lautray]

Thanks for your help guys.

I removed the original RAM stick (a huge 256Mb!) & it seems to have done the trick. It fired up ok, albeit quite slowly (only 1 512Mb RAM stick left now). At least it is on now so I'm not going to switch it off!!! I did try replacing the little battery not too long ago but it wasn't that.

Another question: What is the best way to transfer files from the desktop to notebook? Got a stack of photos, music, email etc. Can you buy a direct USB cable that would link the two? Or better to just transfer them onto to a big thumbdrive (something like a 16Gb) & then over to the notebook? I looked into moving them into a public sharing folder but couldn't get it to work. So something simpler would be preferable.

[MID02K]

There is a modern day version of the old Laplink software, that interfaces via custom USB-USB Cable and uses some windows software for it to work.
THe easiest way would normally be if they are both networked just copy them over the LAN, otherwise just plug in an External USB Drive/ThumbDrive/Etc and copy them off that way.

If you need a large external drive to borrow just let me know Eric and i can lend you one of my many...

[bernieL0max]

Another question: What is the best way to transfer files from the desktop to notebook? Got a stack of photos, music, email etc. Can you buy a direct USB cable that would link the two? Or better to just transfer them onto to a big thumbdrive (something like a 16Gb) & then over to the notebook? I looked into moving them into a public sharing folder but couldn't get it to work. So something simpler would be preferable.

If they are both on the same network at home/work then you can set them up to share files via the network easily.

[lautray]

I bit the bullet & went out & bought a Samsung external USB 500Gb hard drive today. About time I started backing shit up. Cheap enough at $100.