Mates pc keeps going straight to blue screen error message on start up ... any suggestions ?

Cheers

Dailos, Press and hold down in this order: Ctrl Alt Delete ,then release all. This brings up Windows task manager. Then click on the "performance" tab and it shows up how muh memory you're using as well as how hard the CPU is working.

Cheers Seymour
It says 76% of memory used and CPU usage 0%...?

Dil
Get in the queue!
:-)

Dailos, look at the 'Physical memory - Total' number and also on the Processes tab, look at what processes are using the most memory (Mem usage).

biggest 2 are...

"host process for windows services" 27815K
"ho healthcheck services 10844k

Shall i delete them..how do i do it?

They're not very big Dailos - what does the Physical memory - Total figure on the other tab say? And how much memory is the PC meant to have?

Sounds like the PC just hasnt much memory, dont know where the other tab is but it totals about 200K whats on the list that is.
Its a mates childs PC, he's given it to me as hedoesnt know how to switch it on.and thinks im an expert cos i do..!!!!!!!
How can i give it more memory?

It's on the Performance tab...

Otherwise on the task manager window again, do Help/About, it should tell you how much memory is there.

says it has 514k avaialble to windows.
(im on the verge of binning this and buying him a new one, am learning
a lot though so thanks!)

All you need is to open the case up and take out the memory to find out what you have. An easier fix is to use the crucial website - download a bit of software onto your machine. You need to be using Internet Explorer.

Crucial website
They will tell you what memory you have and what you need to upgrade.

512MB is far too little these days. Adding memory is easy if the PC itself is going to be fast enough afterwards. What is the speed of the CPU? It should say as one of the first couple of lines it displays just as it boots, try pressing the Pause/Break key to stop it scrolling. E.g. Pentium 2.3 GHz.

Dailos

Download Belarc Advisor. It will give you a web page showing all the details of your machine.

Its says RAM 512mb (how did you know!)
And 1.86 ghz

Dil

Its could be almost anything but it's worth checking that all the fans are working, then check the hard disk.

To do that:-

Boot from the setup CD
Select the option for the recovery console and log in as Administrator.
Type chkdsk /? followed by Enter at the C prompt - this will give you the options availible.
Run chkdsk with the recovery option that should fix any disk errors.

If the hard disk is larger than 120GB you must use an XP SP2 setup CD or later. Otherwise you will trash the disk.

That may sort it. If not boot from the detup CD, let setup detect your exixting instalation and offer to repair it.

Dailos

Are you running XP or Vista?

512MB should just about be OK for XP although 1GB+ would be better.

Vista needs at least 1GB better to use 2GB+

Opti..
Vista so how can i make it 2GB+ ?

Dalios

Goto Crucial. The have an onlne memory checker which will tell you what you need and how to fit it.

In my experience, they are close to the best deals and their service is first class.

I agree. Crucial are an excellent company. Competitive prices & excellent delivery time, but be aware that RAM is expensive, so brace yourself!

Cheers Optimist I'll pass that on.

Dailos ... it'll be out of date by the time you fix , bin it ... hope this helps :-)

Dailos: Vista is hopeless in 512Mb and sluggish in 1Gb -- it really needs 2Gb. The 1.86GHz CPU should be OK.

My current laptop is a 1.73Ghz IBM ThinkPad running XP. It was delivered with 512Mb which sort of ran OK, but I immediately added another 512Mb. I've now got 2Gb which is the maximum this particular machine can take.

I second the recommendations for Crucial. They are a first-class outfit.