Mrtrate error--System shuts down and reboots

[Brian--Rippin his hair out right now!]

My system, HP Presario s5000t running XP Pro and brand
new, shuts down whenever with the message: "going to
sleep" and then reboots. event Viewer tells me: "
mrtRate service failed" because "the system cannot find
the file specified."

Way beyond me, I'm lucky I found this much out. HP is
clueless and says to reinstall XP, is this my only way out?

Thanks,
Brian with no hair