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Hi
Well it's been about a week since I posted my previous message here 170241.
Since that time, I followed instructions given to me in message 170241 and also uninstalled AVG which I thought may have been causing the problem and deleted lots of programs and files which I also thought may have been causing my system to crash but to no avail.
I downloaded AVG again from their website and run it. I was amazed that AVG found many trojans, adware and some viruses which were transferred to the virus vault which i then emptied. However after rebooting, there was no change in the problem. Just to recap on the problem, when I am working, the mouse will suddenly FREEZE on screen and I then reboot. After reboot, Windows says on the blue screen that one or more of my disks needs to be checked for consistency and while it takes about 15 minutes looking at C, it sometimes looks at F but F is quick and I would that out of the 200 times my system has rebooted in the last week, only about 10 times has it looked at F so if there is a problem with a drive, I would think it would be on C. If I am typing say a document, my system is quite stable, however as soon as I open IE7 and start multi-tasking and running say Outlook Express, and say open a 2nd and 3rd Browser and continue working, it is at this point that i get the FREEZE. I re-installed IE7 completely today from the Microsoft website along with all their updates but unfortunately this did not solve the problem. It has been frustrating for the past week with so many crashes and have wasted so much time waiting for it to check the consistency of C and F. I don't have an XP rom otherwise I would try a clean install. Does anyone have any ideas to solve this? or maybe some free diagnostic software link? I can't even reboot in safemode.
I look forward to your comments. Thanks. Danny1234
You should really stick with your original thread. Can you run System Restore? If that doesn't work, there's really not a whole lot you can without an XP CD. You can get one from Dell though.
Life's more painless for the brainless.
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is that a pentium 266? do you use this for mainly office stuff & internet? what type of internet service?
larry
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Check your event viewer again more carefully. Look in the System section. There may be some errors (symbolized by a red x in the listing). Double click each one and see if you find any errors pertaining to your hard disk.
Download Spybot Search & Destroy and scan with it. There may be some spyware that's freezing your system.
I agree that you really, really, REALLY need an XP CD. It's sometimes impossible to fix a software problem without one.
There are other things such as booting with one stick of RAM and if it still misbehaves, trying the other stick (but only if you have more than 1 stick installed).
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Have you tested your hard drive(s) with the manufacturer's diagnostics yet?
(see my post in your original thread)If chkdsk wants to run after you have Shut Down or Restarted normally, that's probably a sure sign you have a failing hard drive.
Ram problems are a lot less likely in your case, going by your descriptions so far.
.....If chkdsk wants to run while booting, I recommend you always let it run.
If you are shutting down the computer by holding in the power button, if you see a message "Shutting Down Windows" or similar lower left, let go of the power button before 4 seconds or so has passed - Windows will then Shut Down normally, and chkdsk should not want to run the next time you boot (whether you see that message depends on your bios Setup settings to do with what action is performed when you press the power button).
If you held the power button in for more than about 4 seconds, or if you switched off the power to the computer, chkdsk will always want to run while booting the next time you boot - that's normal.Have you tried another mouse?
E.g. I've had problems with one USB mouse conflicting intermittantly with other USB devices, and any corded mouse can develop broken wires inside the cable, often near where the cord enters the mouse.
...Whenever the mouse cursor freezes, you should use your keyboard to try to see if you can close the program it froze in to see if that helps, or if that doesn't help, choose to shut down the system normally so chkdsk doesn't need to run the next time you boot.
Hold down Alt and Ctrl, press Del, let go of the keys, to start up Task Manager.
You can toggle which selection is active by pressing the Tab key - you see dots around the active button. You select or select from a list by using your Enter or cursor keys or spacebar. Close down the offending program the mouse cursor froze in if you can.
If all else fails, press Alt, let go, press U, then either U to Turn off, or R to Restart, the computer.
....Have you tried turning off auto reboot?
Win XP is set by default to automatically reboot when it encounters an unrecoverable error.
To have XP possibly display an error message you can investigate instead of the computer rebooting:
1. Click Start, and then right-click My Computer.
2. Click Properties.
3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
4. Under System failure, click on the small box beside Automatically restart to remove the checkmark.
5. Click OK, and then click OK.If you then get an error message, look at all of it's details.
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hi. my replies:-
1. system restore did not work and I phoned Dell and she wouldn't send me an XP CD because my computer is second-hand.
2. I can't format and reinstall because I don't have the XP CD Rom and I don't have a DVD-RW to copy all my stuff to.
3. Yes it's a Pentium II 266 or 268 Mhz. I use it for office stuff and I have broadband internet.
4. I checked the Event Viewer and tons of entries for SERVICE CONTROL CENTRE. I that's AVG mail scan but I uninstalled AVG a week ago and reinstall Version 8.0 and when AVG was not installed, my system kept crashing.
5. I haven't tested HD with manufacturers diagnostics because it wants a Floppy and my Floppy isn't working properly. If I had a direct link to Quantum without the need for a floppy, I could probably let their tools check my Quantum HDD. My F drive is a Fujitsu and that seems to be fine.
6. Even when I shut down properly or restart, it still says "Your Disk needs to be checked for consistency". My Num Lock light stays on after a freeze.
I am rebooting about 10-15 times a day. so annoying.
Any further help?
Thanks
Danny1234
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"Even when I shut down properly or restart, it still says "Your Disk needs to be checked for consistency". "
That probably indicates your hard drive is failing.
"I haven't tested HD with manufacturers diagnostics because it wants a Floppy and my Floppy isn't working properly."
The floppy drive not working properly can be a symptom you have a defective power supply.
That can also cause frequent sudden rebooting or shutdowns, resulting in possible data damage.Failing power supplies are common and can cause your symptoms.
Check your PS.
See response 4 in this:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...If the floppy drive is actually defective, they are cheap new - $15 or less.
As I probably have already told you:
"Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics.
See the latter part of response 1 in this:
http://www.computing.net/windows95/...(thanks to Dan Penny for this link:)
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm...If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to."
If your floppy drive isn't working, you can propably get a CD bootable version. You can make the CD on someone else's computer who has a burner drive.
However, Quantum no longer supports their hard drives - they have not made them for many years. Their hard drive support was taken over by Maxtor in abour 2000, Quantum drives were no longer made after that, and Maxtor used to support Quantum drives, but Maxtor has since been taken over by Seagate, who now support Maxtor drives, and I don't know if Seagate supports Quantum drives. You could try the Sea Tools (or whateever they call it now) diagnostics, but it may refuse to run. You may be able to find an old Quantum diagnostic program if you search on the web - otherwise, you may need to get a Fujitsu diagnostic program - usually a manufacturer's diagnostics will test any hard drive on the computer as long as one on the computer is the maker's.
..........
"I phoned Dell and she wouldn't send me an XP CD because my computer is second-hand."If this computer came with a 266mhz cpu, it certainly did not come with XP on it originally. In that case it probably had ME or 98SE or 98 on it originally.
This system with that cpu would be extremely slow in XP - you shouldn't even be using it.Whatever version of Windows it originally had, a regular Windows CD's Setup will probably accept the Product Key on the label on your case, and you should have no problem activating Windows. You can borrow a Windows CD of the same version that was orginally installed on the system, or you can use a copy of one (copy the entire disk - e.g. "disk at once" - copying the contents will not make it bootable).
"....I don't have a DVD-RW to copy all my stuff to."
Of course you computer has to work properly for you to be able to use one, but when it is....
Then buy one. They're cheap. E.g. I can get an CD burner drive from local smaller places that custom build and repair computers and have lots of computer parts for $30 or less.
A combo (DVD/CD) burner would not be a good choice for this computer. Burner drives come with a free version of burning software, but the software for a combo DVD/CDn drive may refuse to install on such a slow computer.Or have a friend with spare hard drive space or a burner drive come over with his computer, or you go to his place, and make do, by installing your drive as slave on either IDE or as master on secondary IDE (don't try to boot with it on another computer - if it has XP on it Windows will probably not load XP anyway if the mboard hardware is more than a little different - that's normal and can be fixed, but it doesn't allow you to access the drive).
.....
"I checked the Event Viewer and tons of entries for SERVICE CONTROL CENTRE."
What it says in the event viewer is only of concern if they are error messages. Red circles with an X - yellow triangles, etc.
I have seem no problems withh AVG on many computers I have seen it used on that could not be solved by re-installing it, and have never seen any problems like you describe caused by it.
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hi all
despite weeks of daily crashes, i uninstalled AVG friday. I also removed the sony ericsson mobile phone software by deleting the keys in regedit. however, the sony ericsson remains on the F drive. i tried manually deleting the sony ericsson files from F today but got a warning message that windows needed my cdrom for service pack 2 which i don't have, so i restored all the sony ericsson files back to the F drive. The computer has since friday stopped crashing and is fairly stable at last, however i don't know if the problem was AVG or Sony Ericsson software. I just know the event viewer kept referring to SERVICE CONTROL CENTRE. Also, I have a Windows Folder on the C Drive and F Drive, is this normal?
Thanks
Danny1234
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Have you tested the hard drive with a bootable CD version of the diagnostics yet?
Chkdsk wanting to run every time you boot even when you manage to Shut Down or Restart normally is not a normal thing - it is usually caused by your hard drive being defective. You may have lessened your problem by removing the Sony Erickson software registry entries, but if that software was on defective areas of the hard drive, you are likely to get more similar problems in the future when other data gets installed on defective sectors.
Did you try any of the other things I suggested, and if so, did that find anything?
Do you have any comments about the many things I have told you?
You are never supposed to delete what you can un-install in Add/Remove Programs - deleting often causes problems.
If the un-install won't work there, installing the program again will probably make the un-install workable.Deleting registry entries for a program does not delete the files used by the program, but it usually disables it's components from loading, if you manage to delete the proper registry keys - sometimes not all of them are easily found.
If the program installation used the Windows Installer, you are much better off getting the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility from the Microsoft web site, installing it, running it, deleting the Sony Erickson entry, which will get rid of ALL the registry entries for the program package.Most programs install a few files in Windows somewhere, even if the program was installed on another partition.
I have no idea why deleting the files for the Sony Erickson software would need your SP2 updates CD, or your Windows with SP2 updates included CD.
If it was the SP2 Updates CD it wants, which I very much doubt, you can download the SP2 updates installation from the Microsoft web site.
If it was a Windows CD with SP2 updates included it wanted...
SFC (System File Checker), when you run sfc /scannow, prompts you for a Windows CD with SP2 updates even if you originally installed Windows from a CD that did not have them and then later installed the SP2 updates. Perhaps something similar was going on - Windows detected an essential system file or files was missing or corrupted.
If that's the case, you need to supply a Windows CD with SP2 updates included in order to fix the problem. Your system certainly did not come with XP installed on it when it was new.
...."I just know the event viewer kept referring to SERVICE CONTROL CENTRE."
As I said....
"What it says in the event viewer is only of concern if they are error messages. Red circles with an X - yellow triangles, etc.
If you ARE getting those, RIGHT click on it, there is a link to the Microsoft web site you can click on to possibly get further information.
" Also, I have a Windows Folder on the C Drive and F Drive, is this normal?"
What is in the Windows folder on F ?
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hi Tubesandwires
i'd like to work backwards through your questions if that's ok.
the windows folder on c starts with a folder called addins and ends with winsxs - there are also a lot of loose files in the windows directory and about 100 text files called KB896428 for example - these seem to show error logs. the size of the windows directory on c is 2.48GB.
the windows folder on F starts with a folder called All Users and ends with a folder called Web - there are also loose windows files within the directory. the size of the windows directory on F is 364MB ???seems like it is mirroring the windows directory or C ? yet there are 2 separate hard drives.
maybe you'll let me have your comments. i will let you have answers to your other questions shortly.
Danny1234
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"..windows folder on c starts with a folder called addins and ends with winsxs.."
Actually there are more folders than that, but they are normally hidden by default.
E.g. If Folder Options in Control is tweaked from defaults to show all types of files, there are many folders $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$ listed before \addins - they contain the uninstall info for various Microsoft updates."...about 100 text files called KB896428 for example - these seem to show error logs..."
The KB.....log files in C:\Windows are records of the installation of Microsoft updates that have KB articles about them - in most cases they are sucessfully installed and those are not error logs, but if they were not, you will see mentions of errors near the end of the log file.
"..the windows folder on F starts with a folder called All Users and ends with a folder called Web -"
Normally the \All Users folder is in C:\Documents and Settings, not C:\Windows, and the \Web folder is in C:\Windows
"...the size of the windows directory on F is 364MB ???"
The only time I have seen that much data in \Windows on a partition other than the one Windows was booted from is when the other partition has had Windows installed on it at one time, or someone has copied pieces of a Windows installtion to another partition .
It is possible to have Windows install some of it's components on other than the partition that has the drive letter Windows was booted from, but you, or whoever installed Windows for you, have to choose to change that from defaults yourself/themself.Depending on what your situation was when you ran Windows Setup, Windows may not necessarily boot from the partition assigned the C logical drive letter.
E.g. if you ran Setup and it saw other existing partitions on (a) hard drive(s) it recognizes that were already using, say, the logical drive letters C, D, and E, Windows is installed on and boots from a partition assigned the next logical drive letter - F.
You can see which logical drive letter was assigned to the partition Windows booted from in System Information, beside the listing Windows Directory on the right on the first page you see.
(E.g. Start - Run - type: msinfo32 , click on OK)What are the dates of the files in \Windows on the F drive?
If none of them have the current date, they are not presently being used.
Search \Windows on the F drive using the advanced search options for all files with today's date.
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