You may want to disable power management.  I suspect the power management is causing you're problems.  The way XP handles power management is probably not compatible with how the servers do.  There's really no concept of hibernation or power-down for a server.

So I updated my BIOS to A09 and it fixed those specific errors, but now it restarts less often and when it does, i see this error in the log.

 

Source: Service Control Manager

Event ID: 7000

Description:
The crd service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the path specified.

 

should i still disable the power management? and if so, how do i do that?

 

thanks for the help,

 

hunter

Sorry I didn't suggest updating the BIOS.  I assumed you would have tried that already.

 

The error in the Event Log is unrelated to the system restarts.  The crd service (I'm not sure what that is) is trying to start but the service definition is pointing to a non-existent file.  I suspect you would see the error if you did a restart.

 

Look in the services (Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Services) list and see if there's a crd service.  If there is, look at the properties and check that the file pointed to by the "Path to Executable" field.  My suspicion is the file doesn't exist.  If you can't find the crd service in the services control panel, you might try checking in the registry.  Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\crd.  The ImagePath variable points to the executable.

 

To disable Power Management, open the Control Panel --> Power Options and change all the power scheme settings to Never.  Check the Advanced tab and make sure the Power Buttons are set to either Do Nothing or Shut Down.  Check the Hibernate tab and verify hibernation is NOT enabled.

 

Hopefully, this will keep you running longer.

 

thanks man, i turned off the power stuff, and when i look at the path heres what it says

 

path to executable:

D:\DOCUME~1\Hunter\LOCALS~1\Temp\IXP001.TMP\poststp.exe

 

i checked if the file was there and as you suggested, it isnt.  is there anything i can do now?

 

also, out of curiosity, you said that servers dont really have a concept of hibernation, power down, etc.  if that's true, how should i shut it off every day? just with a hard shutdown (hold button til it turns off)?

Just disable the service.  I have no idea what it was but it's running from the temp directory.  Nothing permanent ever should install there.

 

Standby and hibernate were invented for laptops (and desktops) to allow them to power down.  When you pressed the button, they would power up without having to go through the reboot cycle. A server is typically in an unmanned computer room.  There's no one to push the button so they didn't implement the hooks in the BIOS and software.

 

You can either do a start --> Shutdown and let the system shut down normally or leave it running.  When you come back the next day, do a startup.

 

I don't know if you connected both power supplies but to reduce the power and noise, you can leave one disconnected.  They're redundant but the system will run with just one power supply connected.  If any errors occur, just ignore them.  You may also be able to disable the error reporting in the BIOS.

Thanks for the tips. I did what you said and I receive no errors in the event viewer (warnings now), but for some reason it still restarts... I dont know if this helps, but at mostly unrelated times (not the second before restart) I have been getting these warnings since I made the changes. Actually, the DHCP one seems to happen right as xp logs in.

 

Source: Tcpip

Event ID: 4226

Description:

TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at

Source: Dhcp

Event ID: 1003

Description:

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 00065B3AA288. The following error occurred:

The semaphore timeout period has expired. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.

Any more ideas?

When I received this computer, it had two partitions, one of which was 4gb and nearly full.  I left that alone and formatted what was in the other 90gb partition to put xp on.  First, I was thinking maybe i should completely reformat the hard drive to rid myself of the other partition and reinstall xp after the clean wipe. I was thinking that because there might be software on the C drive (4gb) that is conflicting.

 

Second, I'm on a poweredge 2550 and i now have BIOS A09 for it.  As you may or may not know, A09 for the PE2550 is made for the MS 2003 Server OS and im thinking that maybe i need a different BIOS that is more compatible with xp. if so, any advice on picking the next one?

 

What do you think about these two ideas?

 

This is of course, if we can't seem to fix it soon lol

Are you trying to make this a server?  The first event log error is because Microsoft imposed a connection limit of 5 for XP to "direct" people toward buying the server operating systems to act as a server.  File sharing counts against the limit too, not just IIS.  I suspect someone has come up with a patch to fix this but you'll have to search for it.

 

The second Event Log entry may be due to the second NIC card.  The base machine has two 10/100 NIC cards on the motherboard.  If you're only using one, you can disable the other one in either the BIOS or in Network Connections.  If you open a DOS box (Start --> Run  CMD), you can run the command IPCONFIG/ALL and see what NIC matches the MAC address in the entry.  If it's the disconnected one, just disable it.  If it's the NIC you're using, there's something else going on.

 

If you're going to use this machine as a server, can you run Linux?  Red Hat, SUSE, Solaris and somewhat Ubuntu will run on the 2550.  I was looking at the Ubuntu support forum and there was someone who had Gutsy working on a 2500 which is the same as the 2550.  I don't know if the server has the RAID key installed but it sounded like Linux didn't like the Perc 3 controllers.  You may have to reset the disk controller to SCSI and use the software RAID in Linux if you need it.  If you do change the controller setting, you will loose everything on the drives so backup before you do it.

 

Was there an operating system on the 4Gb partition?  Can you use that since it was probably setup for the machine?  If it's Windows, 4Gb isn't a lot but you can run with it.  If you can backup the partition with Ghost or some other tool, you could always resize the partition to be larger.  I liked to have the OS partition at least 8Gb on the servers I setup but it really doesn't matter.  I've also done it with one big C: drive and that worked fine.

 

The latest BIOS is the best thing to run for any OS.  A09 is the best thing you could run for XP but it's still not going to help make the OS run on a machine it's not really designed for.  I've dealt with the challenges of living on the edge before so I know what you're going through.  I was normally doing the opposite, trying to run Win 2003 Server on laptops.  That was fun.

I'm trying to make this a home PC for my personal use.

 

I switched my cat 5 cable (i think that's what it is) to the 1GbE port instead of the 10/100 and then went into the network connections thing. i first tried to "repair" the 10/100 but it could not renew the ip address which is when i switched the cable over to the other one. I told it to repair the 1GbE  port and it did, then i disabled the malfunctioning 10/100 port.

 

One thing in particular that reboots the computer is when i make a search on limewire and it starts showing multiple hits...is that possibly the 5 connections limitation you were talking about?

 

I now see no errors in the event viewer, but for some odd reason the dang thing still restarts 

 

On the 4gig partition there is a windows 2000 OS, but it has password protection when you open it. It asks you for a login ID and password i suppose from its former network

 

how'd the laptop servers work out for you lol?

Sorry, I've been busy.

 

The connection limit shouldn't cause the system to reboot.  It's only for incoming connections as well.  I don't know the specific details of Limewire but it shouldn't crash the machine.

 

I used to run Windows 2003 Server on an IBM T60p.  We ran SharePoint, SQL, and a bunch of other stuff.  It worked great except the power management stuff was missing.  You couldn't suspend the machine but we didn't care.

 

I still can't get over trying to make a 2550 into a home PC.  We used to have two in our workroom and the noise was irratating to say the least.  I guess if you got a good deal on it you can live with it.

 

If you did want to run the Windows 2000 on the server, there are a number of password reset tools floating around that can reset the password so you can login.  For the server, it would probably be more stable.  Another choice would be Linux but I'm sure you don't want to go down that road.