No solutions, but I can relate. I've been ripped off by so many "experts" at $40 
to $75 an hour that I hate to admit it. In most cases I knew more than they did. 
I learned that returning it the second it screwed up again might get them to fix 
it for no additional charges, but places like Comp USA want to tag it and hold it 
for ransom for bogus reasons. So buy from Costco! A full year coverage on everything. 
They don't fix anything, but give you a full 
hassle-free cash refund. They have better systems than you described for under $500. 
I paid $1,300 for one with a 2.4 MHz Intel Pentium 4 CPU, 512K Ram, 120GB HD, a CD/RW, 
a DVD CD burner, a 1MB video card and a 17" thin plasma screen monitor. In the old 
days I once paid about $500 to get a 300MB hard drive installed in an old 286 (was 
it older than that?) and $250 for a 15 inch color monitor. 

Suggested system requirements are never enough to properly run your OS. Even with 
my overachiever I sometimes get a stagger or pause when I don't want one. When online, 
pop-up ad blockers are essential because they butt in and will screw up applications 
when you least expect it regardless of your machine.

I've used Microsoft even before they had Windows and think XP has been their best 
offering to date. I've never had a crash that I couldn't fix with XP, but had a couple 
in earlier times that totaled out my computer. Back then, backups were time-consuming, 
unreliable, costly, complicated and totally needed. Today it's easier and cheaper 
to add a second hard drive with unlimited storage space. With XP I've never had to 
resort to restoring lost data or files. Hardware and software has improved but spammers, 
hackers and legit advertisers are screwing up a lot of things. There needs to be 
more laws or more enforcement of existing ones. I digress. 


 






On Thursday, November 6, 2003 at 3:19 pm, Ronno wrote:
>Just downloaded the most recent 5-6 Win XP upgrades and now IE Explorer shuts down 
>every 10 minutes while surfing the I-net. PC is Asus A7V133 with an Athlon C 1333 
>with all the parts working all the time. Tossed out conflicting software long ago. 
>Hardware tempuratures good etc. - has been since installing Win XP about 2 years 
>ago. I'm going to uninstall relevent XP upgrades starting with most recent until 
>everything works again. Ron
>
>

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