Hello,

My family and I have a PC which has caused us difficulties in low to severe to incredibly bad form. The specifications at the moment should be like the following:

Manufacturer: Sony Corp
Model: PCV-RX540
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (32-bit)
RAM: 500+ megabytes
Processor: 1.20 GHz Intel Celeron
Hard Disk Drive: Two (2) hard drives (280 GB and a 20 GB drive)


I haven't yet contacted my manufacturer nor any support group. The problem is varying... Often we can run and then our video display will cripple to a 640x480 resolution, 256 colours. Our computer will randomly shut down, it will close applications automatically for no reason. The computer will have trouble reading CDs or disks...

The thing is.. all this only happens when running a modern 32-bit operating sytem. For example, I've ran Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2.0, MS-DOS, and DR-DOS on here just fine. However, when I run (or even install) Linux Ubuntu or Windows XP Professional Edition or Windows XP Home Edition, it cannot run at all. Completely unstable.

Many people believe we have a processor problem. Some say it may be a stick of bad RAM. Others say we tampered with something.

We've had this computer since 2002 (or something around there) and problems didn't grow until around mid-2004. I fear we had tampered with something indeed.

Still... it may be a BIOS problem... eh?? I had done some BIOS updates (I believe) and we think that made it worse. Anyways... I am using my VAIO recovery disks on it right now to install Windows XP Home Edition... any support now and soon would be fantastic.

I appreciate your concern, and thanks.

yeah the VAIOS have known issues with linux(the bios uses a wierd power management and IRQ setup). Maybe it is the same problem under XP?

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