Error on older PC

[cerebus]

So I traded a friend for an older PC for my wife to use for basic web surfing and whatnot. It's a 1.7ghz celeron with 512mb, nothing special. It was running fine for a few days then last week it started giving an error message that it can't login to the administrator account, so it opens through a temp login and sometimes freezes. Safe mode seems to work ok. I haven't been tinkering with it yet because I just got back, so I'm wondering what's a good place to start? How can I tell if it's a hardware or software issue? The HD was freshly formatted and reinstalled. The motherboard drivers are up to date as far as I can tell.

Thanks.

 

[mercurial]

I'm gonna ask the obvious - is the pc secure in terms of anti-virus and firewall? It may be a virus of some sorts. Otherwise, it sounds like software has changed or interfered with system settings. Have you tried creating a new account?

 

[cerebus]

The PC has only just been reformatted, so I don't see how it could be a virus. Unless I downloaded something this last week. I'll try to create a new account thanks.

 

[psivius]

Definitely a software issue. That error usually has to do with a corrupt profile. Which version of Windows is running on the machine. If you have Windows XP I would suggest you do a System Restore. If you are using Windows 2000 then YES, a profile recreation (new account) is the best solution.

 

[mercurial]

Any luck yet?

 

[cerebus]

Yes sorry - I created a new profile and it worked, thanks. Now I will try a system restore when I get back. Thanks for the help.

 

[mercurial]

Cool.