Anon,

  Your problem may not be SETI.  This will be off topic for this forum (I
interupt this forum to bring you a browser/OS thread already in progress)
but your problem may well be your change from Netscape browser to Mozilla.
I've run my own computer for years without problem, one day I installed
FireFox and Mozilla on my machine and within 24 hours I started having
unexpected, unexplained system reboots (Virus, malware, adware and spyware
scanners all came up clean).

I've posted my concerns with Mozilla browsers to a computer security forum
and and was basically told I was crazy and that the problem must lay
elsewhere.  But if your having similiar issues after switching to a Mozilla
browser there may be something to it.  I still have the browsers on my
system as they are MUCH more secure then IE but I use them sparingly and
keep them locked in behind a firewall when not in use, and it seems to have
minimized the unexplained reboots.

To answer your other question, you can reformat your computer from the XP
Disk without losing any of your current data by doing an update or repair
install.  It will preserve your data while updateing and /or repairing
problems with your computer system. It has saved my butt a few times.  Just
run the install on the disk and follow the prompt.

Hope this helps.

(Now I return you to your usual SETI Topical Forum)

SC


<anon@anon.com> wrote in message
news:eosvb01kpoku127q1ho3i18avtmrph4h9c@4ax.com...

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 03:24:16 GMT, anon@anon.com wrote:

I might add, I just tried  uninstalling Boinc-Seti and reinstalling
the Seti@home client but it still reboots within 2 minutes. No warning
or anything.
I was running no sceen-savers and there was nothing else running at
all.

I don't know what I did to my computer!
Seti@home and Boinc-Seti both crash, reboot, my computer with no
warning at all. I don't run them at the same time or anything. I just
thought I'd try Boinc some of the time. Now, it doesn't take 2 minutes
for either to reboot my machine with no warning. This happens
everytime I run either of them.

Everything else "seems" to work fine. I've even done some video
conversions which are very CPU and disk intense with no problems.
The only changes I've made are moving from Netscape to Mozilla and
adding Boinc.

Things I Tried:
1. I uninstalled both Seti's and just installed Boinc-Seti but I get
the same thing.
2. Ran Chkdsk and Defrag. No help.
3. Used 2 different virus scanners (AVG and the online Mcafee).
Neither stay in memory. Neither found anything.
4. Cleaned the system with Windows-Washer. No help.
5. Ran Sisoft's Sandra diagnostics and found nothing wrong. CPU,
memory, disk, everything checked out OK.
6. Ran MBM to watch CPU temperature during unwanted reboot. The CPU
never got over 116-F, which is good.

Specs:
OS: Windows XP Pro (all upgrades). Recent fresh install.
CPU: AMD Athlon 2400+ (not overclocked)
PSU: 450W (More than enough for my setup)
Seti and Boinc Versions: All latest downloads

Note: The last time it rebooted unexpectedly I had Mozilla going. When
it rebooted it found lost file chains during scandisk. It had wiped my
bookmarks and preferences in Mozilla. I had backups, but yow! I'm
guessing Mozilla was playing with the disk when it crashed. I won't do
that again!

Well, I guess I'll have wait a while to run Seti again. I have to  see
if I have a hard-drive crashing, a virus, or some bizaar setting wrong
somewhere.  Beats me! I'm not sure what else to check. Anyone else
have this strange problem?

P.S. I guess I could reinstall XP, there is a way to do it without
losing all my settings, but I forgot how....And, I might try one of
the other number crunching projects, just for a few units,  to see if
they crash me also. Any other ideas?