Yoiks!! Somebody is really showing their age here...

:mrgreen:

Well I haven't seen much evidence of that. We do suggest and consider alternative causes and resolutions for problems, and that's to be expected. There are very few PC-related problems which only ever have a single possible cause!

In this instance, the fact that the problem persisted after a format suggests that a driver issue is a more likely cause than a viral issue. Blaster or Sasser worms can immediately reinfect systems which are permanently online via Broadband, but I've not heard of that happening to a system connected via an internal dial-up modem.

I tried all of your solutions, sadly none of them worked and the problem seems to have become worse.My PC is now acting very strange, it restarts randomly (without countdown) , displays CRC errors when installing programs from a disk, sometimes it refuses to install anything on a disk and still disconnects while connecting to the net.

wow, a lot of you replied to this thread!

You said at the outset that you "got it formatted"

I have to wonder if the job was done properly. If Windows was simply installed again 'over the top' then that is not a format, and any existing problems would have been retained or gotten worse.

If it was actually formatted and installed correctly, perhaps there is something in your computing activity which is causing corruption to your installation. A read of the "Helping Yourself" sticky in the Security Forum section may be in order.

Perhaps a good move would be to wipe clean and start over again. For advice and assistance with doing that, read this topic:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread6632.html

If your problems are replicated on a fresh, clean install, then it's time to check for hardware problems in your computer itself.

CRC errors (and random system restarts) can be the sign of bad RAM. Download and run the following RAM-testing utility:

http://www.memtest86.com

Run the utility multiple times for a real "stress test" of your RAM. If you have multiple sticks of RAM, remove them; run memtest on each stick individually.

Another possibility to consider is other bad hardware. I had a very similar experience that I initially thought was an overheating CPU. After a couple months of working with it, I opened my power supply to find a crispy resistor. Try all the other suggestions here, and if there is still no resolution, have a look at getting your hardware checked on.

-hack

Thanks guys, it turns out there was a bad stick of RAM.

Glad we could help you get it sorted- marking this one as solved...