First off I want to list my PC Spec's CPU - Pentium III 800MHz RAM - 256MB SDRAM PC133 (1 stick 256) Motherboard - Soyo 7ISA+ (BIOS FULLY UPDATE) Video Device - NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200 HardDrive - Western Digital 60GB PCI Hardware: 1. Ethernet Card (Thats all i have in the PCI Slots) Outher IDE Devices - CD-Writer CD/CD-RW Cooling - Copper Gaming CPU Heatsink/FAN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I hope i listed everything, however my problem is i have been getting constant PC "Lock-ups" or (freezing). Along with naggin BSOD! This PC never would have any problems like this before untill abought 2 weeks ago. It would constantly "Lock-up" I thought right away it was a RAM problem. So i upgraded from 2 sticks of 128SDRAM to 1 stick of 256SDRAM. This stopped the BSOD of "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" Then i was getting the lock-ups. I have EVERYTHING full updated. I formated and put WinXP Professional and have no outher programs installed. I tried so many things from memory testing to thermal on all my heatsinkage. Out of all the things i didnt try was unplugging my ethernet cable coming from my outher LAN computer i use to host game servers and so on... Once i unplugged it, the "lock-ups" were gone. Its been an hour now of the post of this message and no lock-ups. I looked in the Event Viewer - System from errors that might give away my prob and they all said something similar abought my Internet, here lt me give you one i saved: A certificate could not be found. Connections that use the L2TP protocol over IPSec require the installation of a machine certificate, also known as a computer certificate. No L2TP calls will be accepted. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. __________________________________________ So then i was like, "A working PC with no internet? I dont think so. So then i grabed the ethernet cable coming straight from the router to the LAN PC i was talking abought earlier and plugged it into the ethernet card (the card wich is in the PC i was getting the lock-ups) Now i have internet access and no lock-ups. Its running great. However my problem is i still want to host my servers but the LAN PC wich hosts them no longer has an internet connection? Anyone got an idea what was causing my original setup to do this? ( Let me again make my "original" setup a bit more clear: 2 PCs: 1. "Server PC" 2. "The PC With Lock-ups" Ethernet cable from routher to my "Server PC" Server PC connected to "The PC With Lock-ups" with a corssover ethernet cable. That all above is the setup i want and had during the "lock-ups" I hope i made sence! Thanks! Finding Roaches in the pot.

I would suggest a real close look at your server system for Virus, Worms, Trojans and Bots. As it is a server it is not being protected by the router fire wall. You need to do several full scans on both systems with different AV products including an up to date OnLine scan. Then scan for other Malware like spyware and ADware. Without an active always on Firewall (SP2 default), a system can be found and infected in 20 seconds even on a Dial-up connection, which is before you can download and install all of the security patches. And your server could be spreading it to your clean install as soon as you drop its firewall to share files. Worms and Bots sometimes cause hangs like your are getting when there is an error in them or more than one is conflicting, or they can not call home, because there is something blocking their direct Internet access (the server).

it could be spyware, this page may help, http://www.howtonetworking.com/others/spyware0.htm

It might hav something to do with Windows file Protection, some of your system32 might have been over written, was windows file protection turned off that you no of? I would run the " c:>sfc /scannow" command have ready your xp cd. This will put back your the right system files. Good Luck

you might need to run this in safe mode.. if you can get there.

Sometimes I wonder if I am reading the same post as everyone else. I don't believe the L2TP message has anything to do with your lockup issues. This message indicates a misconfiguration of ipsec or some other server component. It would appear your 2nd pcs lockups are due to network communication. This could be as simple as a bad crossover connection. This can be eliminated by connecting the 2nd nic in the server to the router as well as the problem pc. Assign static ip address [not in the range as the routers lan segment] to the 2nd nic in the server and the problem pc. See if your lockups go away. I read nothing about the server being in the DMZ so it is protected by NAT from the internet. This doesn't protect you from spyware or virus's so follow the suggestions to scan for them. Do it on both boxes.

Alright folks, i elminated my setup and tried something new. The server PC is now disconnected completly. My PC now (the one connected to the server PC) has a Fresh partition and clean install of Windows XP Home Edition with SP2. Here is my profile: Pentium III 800MHz With Copper Head Cooling (Running at 56 Degree C) 256MB SDRAM PC133 (1x Sticks, with colling slides) Fully updated BIOS, Drivers & Windows. PCI Ethernet Card (1x) 60GB Western Digital Hard Drive. CD/CDW 1x CD-ROM PS/2 Keyboard, USB Optical Mouse. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now after doing this i was STILL getting theese lock-ups. I also do believe it has something to do with L2TP, my reason being under the Event Viewer it shows that Alert (!) at the time of the lock-up. It seems to only happen when a Internet Browser is open or even running minamized. I check ALL the PC's in my household for Spyware and Virus's. Everything is cleaned out and my router is has fully updated firmware. When i goto the WindowsXP Help & Support center it tells me under user action to "Aquire a L2TP blah, blah, blah Certificate. (Wow that was a help :\ ) Any Ideas or solutions to this? Thanks for your help, effort, and time. Finding Roaches in the pot.