We're donating this HP pavilion x1966 computer.  There's something
screwy with it in that it keeps rebooting itself without warning,
either while it's being used or just while it's idle.  It actually has
a warning message with a giant triangle with a ! inside of it says
something about "did your browzer stop working or did you restart your
computer without shutting it down ..." that appears UNDER the desktop
(as in under all of the other desktop icons).  It freezes the screen
and all of this, icons and warning message, has burned itself into the
monitor screen.

I'd like to debug, devirus, whatever it takes, if possible so we can
donate it.

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 25 Sep 2003 00:04 PDT

rhinestone...

I wanted to inquire as to the status of your question.
Have we been of assistance, or is there more you need
to know?

Whoa!  This is worth far less than $25...

Maybe you have blaster virus.  Symantec has instructions on their
website to clean it up

Whomever you donate the comptuer to will probably reinstall their own
OS and software.  Transfering licenses is tricky anyway unless you
have all the original CD's and paperwork.

Dear rhinestone-ga:


If you don't have virus protection or virus detection software you can
check your computer for free online at places like this one:

http://www.jrwhipple.com/freeviruschk.html

If it doesn't detect any viruses, my guess would be that one of your
RAM sticks is failing under load and at certain points it is causeing
your computer to reboot due to being suddenly overwhelmed (a reported
problem with some Pavillions). If you can, I recommend you try and
borrow some RAM from a friend and plug it in to see if the problem
persists. After snapping the new RAM into your computer and running it
for a few days you may find the problem doesn't happen anymore. If
not, that's your problem.

Alternatively you might use a disgnostic program like these but if
your problem is intermitent it might not catch it:

http://www.simmtester.com/page/products/doc/docinfo.asp

http://www.smithmicro.com/checkit/

Let me know if you find that your "bad memory" (no pun intended) is
the problem. If so, I will post this as an answer.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

rhinestone...

The message you have described occurs when Active Desktop has
crashed, and this can occur when the browser stops working
properly. I would recommend turning off Active Desktop and
seeing if the browser still has problems on its own. To do
so, right-click the desktop and scroll to Active Desktop,
then uncheck 'Display Web Content'. If the browser works
okay afterwards, great. If not, bad RAM is certainly 
something to explore.