For a year now, I have formatted my computer about 13 times, not because of problems, because of the urge to try out other OS's like Vista for example. and EVERY time I have put a new OS on my computer, everything ran perfect... until now.

I have done about 3 clean installs this week..... again, but I cannot solve this, when Windows starts up with ANY third party firewall installed, my Hard Drive turns off and I get a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) when I start my computer in safe mode everything works perfectly, even the firewall but when I go to check my event logs, it seems this is caused by a 'important' service not being able to start, now normally, this would be as easy as 1 2 3, but no... Every time I check to see what causes Windows XP to crash, they are random services, sometimes 1 or sometimes more and they are varying, the service could be something like my Catalyst Control Center to something like a music service not working and I HIGHLY doubt that a service of that type is important to Windows XP.

All this has led me to believe is that I have some sort of Virus that is not in Windows, but is actually in my Hardware or BIOS, could this be possible and if so, how could I check to see?

PS: I have not done a full format on my computer for a year, only a quick formats, scan disk hasen't found any problems either when I checked last night.

Edited January 25, 200719 yr by FrozenBlade

If you can repro the problem and make it blue screen, configure your machine for a complete memory dump and then cause it to bsod. The resulting dump might tell us what is hapening to you.

I Can't do a mem dump at all, When the BSOD comes up, my computer runs but the Hard drive instantly looses power so Windows is not actually there anymore.

So, the machine BSODs, but the machine goes black right away and basically shuts off?

Yes, that is what is worrying me, It must be something to do with Hardware but I do not know what is doing it, I know it is not the CPU but I haven't been able to check the RAM, is there any utilities that will be able to tell me more about my Hardware besides the make and speed?

Yes, that is what is worrying me, It must be something to do with Hardware but I do not know what is doing it, I know it is not the CPU but I haven't been able to check the RAM, is there any utilities that will be able to tell me more about my Hardware besides the make and speed?

If you have a spare hard drive somewhere, put it into your problematic computer, install XP on it and any other programs you think might be causing the problem and see if the problem reoccurs. Be sure to do a full format, not a quick one. If the problem reoccurs, then you've got yourself a hard drive problem. Otherwise... Well... It's something else. This might be time consuming, but if you want your computer working 100% of the time, then it's definitely worth.

Ok I will give it a go and see what happens.

Check PSU.

Well guys I did it, and I checked the PSU too And still no luck, still BSOD's or freezes completly after I install a third party firewall, at least I know my HDD's are ok now, think it is a problem with my Windows Disk?

Edited January 27, 200719 yr by FrozenBlade

Well, it is possible (seems odd that it powers down though) - does your BIOS have an Automated System Restart (ASR) feature?

Not that I know of, the only thing I have noticed is that the BIOS itself was actually running everything at max settings (which I thought was a bit stupid) so I reset the BIOS to factory Defaults.

you may clean ram & check.

Well, I give up, I have tried most of the normal things and still no luck, I guess I have gotta buy some new parts just to do some Hardware testing, well thanks for the help guys, I really appreciate it.