BleepingComputer.com: service pack 2 prevents restart

hi, i 've recently reformatted my laptop and reinstalled xp pro after some virus troubles. i'm currently in the process of installing all the lost drivers and windows security updates but everytime i install service pack 2 it goes wrong. SP2 installs fine and then the computer restarts as normal, but then once the windows loading screen is reached i will suddenly get a blue screen of death with the following technical codes

0x00000000, 0x8054DA70, 0xA2000000, 0x8c010400

at first i thought it might be due to outdated drivers on my video card or having only directx 8. but even after installing the best driver i could find and installing directx9c it still happens. after starting in safe mode and running dxdiag it seems as though my directmusic and direct 3D programs no longer work. Also my drivers that were previously installed seem to have turned themselves off (AIDA32 says they have stopped) so maybe this is why windows can't start?

I am running an old alienware 51m laptop (from 2002), with an ati mobility radeon 9000 graphics card, mobile intel pentium 4HT processor, intel sheeks (SHE845M0.86C.0013.D.0210010941) motherboard (intel Brookdale i845E chipset)

Also i was wondering if my BIOS being out of date could cause complications but as yet i haven't found a driver specific to my motherboard

Thanks for any help


On a less urgent note i've also been testing out 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04 versions of ubuntu to see if i could boot directly from the cd and use that for a while instead, but all of these have the same problem in that they reach the ubuntu loading screen and then the computer collapses in a heap (wubi also didn't work and as yet i'm not ready to re-partition the drive to install it fully). perhaps these problems are linked?

hey, here's an update.

after scouting around the internet a bit it seems that service pack 2 may well have problems with area 51-m 9000 laptops due to either hyperthreading not being enabled or throttling of my processor turned up high. However my Bios does not have the option to change either of these even though the manual for this computer says i should at least have the throttling option (also my comp is running at 50% throttling i'm sure of it).

I'm wondering if I should flash my bios with an updated version? at the moment it is

Phoenix bios 4.0 release 6.0
bios revision 1.02.00

for an i845 chipset. Does anyone know where to get an updated version?

This might be difficult though as the computer has developed a new problem preventing the reinstallation of xp pro. The screen freezes approximately 10-15 mins into the running of windows. it has never frozen (yet) on a screen without a GUI such as the format hard drive screen etc. only once it gets to windows. Is it possible that this is due to bad ram/graphics chip?

so essentially my computer's pretty busted, but the fact that it won't even run ubuntu or (xubuntu) has me pretty stumped. anyone know of a collective error that causes this lot of symptoms?

Sure...any of several hard drive situations...could prevent a system from booting/running.

I would start with running Memtest on the RAM and running a diagnostic on the hard drive...and possibly trying a different power supply (temporarily).

Have you checked the website of the laptop manufacturer (support)?

If you could post some of these links you found that you think...document your problem...it might help.

Louis