What the hell is going on???

lance_biscuit · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:12

Hi Guys

Basically whats been happening with my pc is that during a windows session the pc will either freeze while doing something easy (seemingly) like pressing the start button, after coming out of a game (it rebooted after a 20 min session of dod:s). It then proceeds not to let me into Windows again and I have to constantly reset and turn off the pc etc, try safe mode, debugging mode etc until I've got in again. I've done diagnostics on the Hds and the ram, low level formats etc and this is on a fresh install of Xp Pro Sp2. The only thing I can say for definate is that Kerio Personal Firewall is installed when everything goes **** up but not sure if its that, coz it could just be a coincidence. Anyway heres my spec

S939 AMD 4800
ASUS A8N-SLI DELUXE
2GB RAM
2 * 250GB T7K250
X-FI PLATINUM
480W TAGAN PSU
X1800 XT 512MB
ANTEC P180

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Borden · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:16

You tried uninstalling the firewall to see what happens? Update motherboard, graphics, sound drivers and see if that helps.

lance_biscuit · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:20

I've just uninstalled the firewall, using an old system restore point, im using it alongside avast antivirus which kerios meant to be compatible with, avast seems ace but gotta look for a new fw now, and yeah it was a fresh copy of Xp so all the drivers were dled and installed so all new

lance_biscuit · 9 Sep 2006 at 18:54

Right after a while after uninstalling the kerio firewall i decided to install ashampoos new firewall, the pc switched off just after it installed and then continued to reboot just after the avast and some other apps had started up when i restarted the pc.

Help!!!!
Any ideas!!!?

Hawk Tuah · 9 Sep 2006 at 19:43

The first thing I would be testing is your Ram using Memtest.

lance_biscuit · 9 Sep 2006 at 20:17

I did that a while ago and it never gave me an error back, ive also used hitachi drive fitness tools to analyze the drive and it doesn't report anything negative either, any other ideas?

probedb · 9 Sep 2006 at 20:26

lance_biscuit said:
I did that a while ago and it never gave me an error back, ive also used hitachi drive fitness tools to analyze the drive and it doesn't report anything negative either, any other ideas?

You said 'a while ago', that doesn't mean it's still ok

Do it again!

Try reseating everything if you can?

lance_biscuit · 9 Sep 2006 at 20:39

I mean in the last week ive done it, I've also tried reseating them too

Hawk Tuah · 9 Sep 2006 at 20:49

Sounds like you're gonna have to work through replacing every bit until you find which components causing it.

I had a similar problem a while back and it was the RAM.

lance_biscuit · 9 Sep 2006 at 22:12

Was the problem with ** ram be an intermittent one, as in off and on.

Steve09 · 10 Sep 2006 at 01:37

Definitely the RAM

Sounds like its gone down to 128MB

I had 512MB and when I came out of game, my screen went laggy for a few seconds and xfire, taskbar etc were all black

Gone up to 1GB and its now not black

Your symptoms were on my old PC which had 128MB RAM, click the Start button and it would just freeze

PC-M Vip3r · 10 Sep 2006 at 01:44

Sounds like a similar problem I am having and a few friends are having. I was thinking it could be something to do with a New Windows update that has changed some settings. Its happened to only gamers that I know.

I thought it might be a failing PSU at first but I checked everything and its fine.

lance_biscuit · 10 Sep 2006 at 11:49

I take it then that by installing the firewall windows must be using the portion of the memory thats making it crash all the time? Coz it seems to be running fine without one installed right now.

lance_biscuit · 10 Sep 2006 at 18:51

Right guys after all the comments about ram i decided to run memtest again, so I've ran it for the last 6 hours and had no errors reported, any other suggestions?

My drivers are all up to date , nvidia for the mobo etc

HELP!!!?

Celador · 10 Sep 2006 at 22:21

Dodgy sector on hard drive maybe? Try running chkdsk..

That said, I have been having very similar problems lately; random freezes, shutdowns (less frequent) and BSODs. I seem to be reading a lot about similar issues at the moment and like you thought it might be a recent windows update or similar. :confused:

Have to say that after testing I was thinking about replacing my memory but as memtest turned up no errors after 4 hours am now wondering about one of my hard drives.. anyone got any thoughts??

Cel.

lance_biscuit · 12 Sep 2006 at 15:25

Hi Celador

Well I've managed to get my pc running sweet again, I did actually have a faulty sector on a hard drive but it wasn't the system drive and I wasn't running any apps from it.

Not sure what happened but I've now ditched my previous av's (avast and mcafee before that) for avg. Im not 100% sure what it could have been.

But thanks everyone for all your help!

Cheers

Chris