Asus M/B, Athlon 64 3500, 1Gb ram, Samsung 160Gb PATA HDD, Win XP Home. Has been working fine until last week when the mouse and keyboard locked up - caps lock light went out, LED on (optical) mouse went out. Only way out was a reboot. During POST a click came from the case speaker and the the error message " \system32\ntoskrnl.exe corrupt or missing", along with a continuous bleep fro the case speaker.

I eventually had to reinstall Windows and all was OK - for a few days. Has now started again.

I suspect HDD problems. Any thoughts?

This happened for the first time mid session? - Do you have an overly aggressive virus or spyware checker that's picking up a false positive in ntoskrnl and killing it?

Bit of an odd one, don't think I've seen that before :rubchin:

This any help? Goes through a few possibles:

NTOSKRNL.EXE is missing or corrupt.

Steve

Check the motherboard for burst or bulging capacitors.

Very common and if you find some pop back here and i'll suggest how to fix it depending on how many. They are usually 2200uF caps that blow.

Hard drive. Usual suspect > Back up data if possible.

Check the motherboard for burst or bulging capacitors.

Very common and if you find some pop back here and i'll suggest how to fix it depending on how many. They are usually 2200uF caps that blow.

That's your first check. Then Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool check your memory, if that's OK, hard disk.

The memory check would also be valid. I'd certainly take a backup though

That's your first check. Then Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool check your memory, if that's OK, hard disk.

That would be my advice.

I would also check the CPU isn't running too hot

mmm, not sure that is HDD, I mean you would pick something up on the SMART or scandisk (for broken clusters)

either virus or overzeleous anti-virus

Let us know if you replace the HDD

Update: whipped HDD out and connected it via a USB adaptor to my laptop and ran various diagnostics. No errors show up, although checking indexes seems a long process.

The capacitors on the MB seem OK, but I'm going to strip the board down and reassemble it in case of any dirty contacts on memory, etc.

Latest. No drives connected or cards installed - only CPU and one stick of memory. POST fails at the same point as with everything installed. A click from the case speaker, followed by a continuous clicking.

Looks like the motherboard

It was the CPU. New one ordered last night from Ebuyer and arrived today

Just as well it wasn't the MB - Socket 939 ones are now fairly rare and expensive. I'd probably have had to change to an AM2 one - meaning not only a new motherboard, but CPU, memory, hard drives and graphics card as well :eek:

It was the CPU. New one ordered last night from Ebuyer and arrived today

Just as well it wasn't the MB - Socket 939 ones are now fairly rare and expensive. I'd probably have had to change to an AM2 one - meaning not only a new motherboard, but CPU, memory, hard drives and graphics card as well :eek:

That's a bit of luck.

Would have been a good excuse for an upgrade, though!

Phil

That's a bit of luck.

Would have been a good excuse for an upgrade, though!

Phil

SWMBO would have had my guts for garters :O