I have an HP Pavillion 7955  I got from a friend who gave it up because 
it was "running slow".  It's a 1.6 GHz P4, 256MB Ram, was running XP 
Home. I cleared off the HD, restored from the HP restore CDs,  updated 
to SP2, loaded apps, updated the OS from MS and ran it on and off for a 
week.  No problems.  Then I moved it to a computer desk and 
reconnected.  The only difference was a different LCD display and a 
second (wireless) mouse. The machine locked up, no response to mouse or 
keyboard.  Moved it back to my test bench, and it continued to lock up, 
sometimes after it loaded the desktop, sometimes during boot.
Got it to boot from a CD, cleared the HD off again and restored from the 
HP CDs.  This time I ran a load test (Burnin 4.0) after each step.  
Reinstalled the modem and firewire card, updated a few drivers I could 
find, updated the OS and it ran just fine.  Ran it for 4-5 hours 
continuously, restarted many times, no problems. At this point it's 
basically stock, except for an additional 256MB RAM (which tested just 
fine after installation).
Moved it back to the computer desk, reconnected everything - the only 
difference was the LCD display and the wireless mouse (USB connected). 
Locked up again. Moved it back to the test bench, and so far I cannot 
boot successfully from floppy or CD or restore CDs. It just stops 
responding to anything.  Removed the two PCI cards (modem, firewire) and 
the additional memory. Still won't successfully complete any action, 
including restore.  Got it to start to restore, stops at 5% if it even 
gets that far.
So where is the problem and how do I fix it? Or is it some sort of 
motherboard failure?

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