Blue Screen of DEATH, then freezes at boot up, help please!

[cow_dung]

Last week, I was just watching videos on youtube when suddenly the browser closed... so I opened it up again and then all of a sudden, the Blue error screen comes up
and tells me that the system had to shut down to prevent problems and that it could have been not enough memory or new drivers/components.. and at the bottom, it said beginning dumping of something, sorry, forgot to copy the information

so, I pressed the restart button and then the next thing, the computer freezes at the ASUS mb logo/"Press DEL to enter setup" screen and the red blinker on the case stays on red for about 1 minute

but, occasionally, I am able to press DEL and enter the setup mode and when I save or discard the changes, the computer would go to the windows boot up screen with the blue loading bars going left to right, but after that it turns all black, restart and freeze at the ASUS mb logo/"Press DEL to enter setup" screen again...

and lastly, sometimes I am successful in getting to the desktop, but then a error would come up saying "this memory/program (bunch of numbers 0000...x78545) could not be "read") press OK to terminate program, and when I press OK, the whole comp would again restart and freeze at the same screen..

I tried going into safe mode, but it just freezes when all those white text finish loading, and tried booting from XP disc but freezes as well when its loading those stuff

I did have enough time to take a quick glimpse of My computer drives and everything is still there, but not enough time to back them up before the comp restarts itself

So is this a problem with the hard drive? RAM? or motherboard? programs/drivers? other parts/virus?
Will appreciate all the help. Please help me narrow down to what is causing this this is driving me nuts..

p.s I'm running Windows XP Pro Corp. Nvidia video card, 512 ram, 120gb, comp's ~3yrs old

[vipaar]

Sounds like you have a prob with your BIOS, you`ll need to clear it and re-configure your BIOS and here`s how

----DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS WITH THE POWER CABLE CONNECTED AS THIS WILL MESS UP YOUR BIOS PERMANENTLY----

shutdown your PC,
disconnect PC power cable/s
find the CMOS jumper on your MB
follow Manufacturers Instructions on clearing the CMOS, which will be Either to remove the CMOS jumper for at least 30 secs OR move the jumper to the CLEAR CMOS pins

Also remove the button battery (cell) to clear the bios memory

I would wait at least 5 minutes before the next stage

replace the jumper to it`s original position
replace the battery into it`s bay
double check that you have done it right
reconnect the power cable after you are sure everything is ok
you will then need to re-configure your bios


if you are unclear about anything, post again and I`ll explain it - good luck

[Kraig]

I had a similar problem once.It turned out that the HDD was faulty.The problemn was not in the Data plates but rather something happened to the pcb(controller).
Also,replace your memory and see what happens.
It could also be a Bios problem as vipaar said