Weirdest Problem I've Encountered

I had a compaq workstation computer 3 Years Old, win98, celeron 500, 128mb Ram. 6 Gig HD, Philips 800series Cd Burner. I went out of the country during Thanksgiving and when i came back, my comp. was never right again.( My brother may have left it on during the week because I know he did use it while I was away, but he is Computer literate, he does tech Support for a software company, so I have to believe he knows what he is doing). It started freezing up randomly, shutting down without telling it to, and just acting crazy. The first thing that seems to go is the CD-Burner, it was just start going crazy, the lights on it would light up like there is a CD in it, and that its burning even though its empty. Then the whole comp freezes shortly after. So I disconnected the Burner by unplugging power cord. Still had the problem.
Then i thought it was a HD, failure, so i got a 20gig hd from my bro, put Win98 on it and it still had the same exact problems. Next i figured it could've been my mother board or processor. So went and bought a Barebone kit, AMD Athlon 1.2gig, and KS75A Motherboard. Put in my old Cd Rom, Both HD's, and the old 2x64mb ram. Still freezes up on me. Then I started getting Bad Checksum errors when first turning computer on. Had to reset the settings in Bios everytime got the Bad Checksum error, in the begining after Bios checks RAM, then Master and Slaves. Now I figure its the Ram, I go out and buy Micron 256ddr CAS=2.5, Hook up the old burner and start using my comp. Only playing a song in winamp and 2 browsers open, Comp freezes again, but this time not permanent. Starts freezing for about 20 seconds, then works for about 2, then freezes again, then worked, then froze....
So unplugged the burner again, and started using the comp, and now havent had it freeze up yet....but it still not acting correctly. My Connection to the internet through the LAN still stalls, which it seemed to start doing ever since i got the New System. It will be working one second, then just stall for about a minute where no program has access to the internet, then everything loads up.

My next step is to try new Nic Card. My question is, does anyone know what a possible problem is or what they think may have happened over the week of Thanksgiving.

Some other points to make is, only programs loaded @ startup is NortonAntivirus, AIM, but doesnt sign on, and program for my wirelss keyboard (which i just installed in Jan. After having all the problems). Any help is appreciated, I've spent about 500 bucks so far, and I am about to call it quits, and go by a prebuilt-Compaq again.

 

try calling a catholic priest and have him perform an exorcism on your computer

 

lol..... , I think its about that time too...But i don't have or want to waste $500...on all this new computer equip.

By the Way, I apologize for the long Post, but trust me, that was the condensed version of everything that has happened. This is my last resort....HHHHHHHELLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hi fastws6ta,
Try looking at the Power Supply. Sometimes faulty or going out power supplys cause these problems.

 

Thanx, but new Powersupply with Barebones kit, forgot to mention that

 

I just pulled out my Old NIC card, plugged in my Burner again, and have been running my comp for about 15 min now, i have 4 IE Browsers open, and about 11 programs, runnigng playing song with Winamp, and running Virus Scan at the same time.

Sys Resources @ about 22%, and comp is still running....I wonder if it was my NIC Card the entire time, I now have my LAN going though onboard NIC connection. Will keep u updated if anything changes.
ps. Has anyone else had a NIC card go bad and have a computer respond the way it did???

 

Well, almost 3 hours later, 1 restart after shutting all the Programs down, only problem so far is at boot up didnt detect either one of my CD-Roms, the Burner or Regular, but Haven't reset it yet. That Damn NIC card may have been the cause of all my problems

 

Let me know if the cd roms don't come back, Compaq's are wierd that way !!...Rhett