First of all, I have to tell you what started all of my problems.

We have Windows XP and it's a Pentium 4. The computer was bought around 2001 - 2002.

We had about 512 RAM and a few months we bought more, so now we have about 1.50 GB of RAM.

Anyways, after I put in the RAM, the computer would start up.. and crash once it got going. It only happened a couple of times though, and then it would run properly. The RAM was probably just too much for the computer.

It worked fine after that, unless of cource you turned the computer off. Then once you turned it back on it would crash a couple of times and become normal again.

I then just left the computer on all the time so I wouldn't have to wait for it to crash over and over. One day though, there was a storm out and the power went out on the computer, and it crashed after that many times.. and it became a real hassle when the computer was turned off on occasion, or when the computer would crash for no reason in the middle of something.

Some files I think were lost though, because now the connection seems to be a bit slower, MSN has a few problems (File tranfers and extremely slow) and so I decided to check my firewall.

When I click Window Firewall, it says, "Windows Firewall cannot be displayed because thje associated service is not running. Do you want to start the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service?"

I click yes and it tells me, "Windows cannot start the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service."

Also note that I've dicovered that my 'Network Connections' folder is empty.


I know that this problem probably sounds very general.. but if anyone can help me.. please tell me what I can do.