I've gone back to using a PC from a few years ago running xp professional. I spent most of yesterday clearing some pretty nasty viruses and spyware off.

When I was running the various programs to clear the crap, I would periodically have a BSOD and a load of error text stream down the screen before it promptly shut down. It was too quick to read but I was wondering whether if xp stores shutdown logs anywhere.

Alternatively can a virus cause these types of symptoms I say this as it hasn't happened since I finished cleaning the pc. I left it on overnight doing some processing and it has been fine. Any ideas?

if its the blue screen one, when you restart, it should ask if you want to send an error report, when you do this it also checks the status of the error, so click on close on the error reporting window, then another pops up with a blue link for more info, press that and it'll tell you the reason, and might tell you how to fix it

I've had a couple full of viruses and spyware like that...

in the end I've always just formatted the HDD and started again from scratch - I found even once they are cleaned out XP can get a bit unstable flaky, a clean install is much better

I agree, full format reinstall then update the hell out of it, the xp install won't take long the updates on the other hand can take hours, if your struggling for an xp disk stop me a u2u

Could a hard disk related problem.

If you want to read what the BSOD says you can disable automatic restart.

Open up system in control panel (or right click onmy computer and go to properties), go to the advanced tab, then under "Startup and recovery" click settings. About 60% down the startup and recovery dialogue box you will be a check box against automatic restart. Untick it.

Next time you get a BSOD it will stop and you will have to manually restart.

That is provided you want to try to fix the problem.

To be honest, unless there is important data on the HDD I would perform a reinstall with full reformat. It will take a while to do but save you loads of time in the long run and give you a nice clean and fast system

Rich

I was in a hell of a rush chaps and ended up finishing my report in safe mode and then formatting and installing windows 7

Interestingly, the shutdowns could occur at any times but the pc would always shut down when i launched google chrome...everytime


It seems fine now after the reinstall. Its the first time ive had a desktop for about 5 years and im quite enjoying tinkering again.

Thanks for your help chaps