BIG problem with my peecee (Please help me)

I know that it has nothing to do with my lovely Amigas. There I don't have serious problems. But, please, I want your help for this one.

Running a peecee with WinXP Home SP3 blah blah...

At random times, my computer freezes (I cannot do anything, no mouse movements, no keyboard, nothing at all) and then, after some seconds, it comes to normal again. I also noticed, that the HD led is always steady lit when this happens.

Any suggestions, what is going on?

I've run a fully scan on all 3 hard disk drives I have, but apart from some tracking cookies, there is nothing else in my system.

Thanks in advance.

This sounds like a Hard disk error.

START / RUN
type "cmd" press enter
type "chkdsk c: /f /r"
it will prompt to restart computer.. do so and it will scan on startup
repeat for all drives

If you have Spinrite by Gibson Research (GRC.com) then boot from this and scan disks. (I swear by it)

Gary

Thank you so much. I will try it when the scan finishes.

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago.
Pc would freeze completely for about 1 min then resume. This would happen every 5-10 minutes.
Turned out to be a faulty PCI Wireless card.
As soon as i removed PC was fine again.

Oh... And I have a Wireless PCI card installed Mike. :Doh: (Tell me the model to go crazy!)

If I will unplug it and then plug it again, will fix the problem? Sometimes it needs that.

a refit cant do any worse so its always worth a try.
Unfortunately i cant remember the model i just know it was a Texas Instruments card.

Mine one is a NetGear WG311T.

Because of the thread of viruses and problems with pc's a lot of users decide to mix anti-virus packages. (you gave it away, i run a scan :))

What happens, is like having 3 girlfriends and two of them meat eachother when you are kissing one: there will be some investigation like 2 or 3 minutes without you being responsive (or you could decide to hang yourself)....

Please take it from me: no more than ONE REALTIME ANTI VIRUS :nod: It is low level magic certainly on XP, Vista something BAD happens when they examine the same FILE.

This is a proven good explanation, but I cannot claim that it is your prob.

Who has 2 or more anti-virus tools running simultaneously?

check what packages could contain realtime antivirus, disable them.

Remove all anti virus, anti spyware, re-install one of them fresh copy.

if you have legal microsoft xp: microsoft security essantials (all in one)

for a scanner you could use freeav: uncheck the realtime scanner (so you can scan for viruses, but not automated.

do not use NORTON stuff :D

---------- Post added at 00:54 ---------- Previous post was at 00:52 ----------

Who has 2 anti-virus tools running?

A lot of people without realising..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jvdbossc

check what packages could contain realtime antivirus, disable them.

Remove all anti virus, anti spyware, re-install one of them fresh copy.

if you have legal microsoft xp: microsoft security essantials (all in one)

for a scanner you could use freeav: uncheck the realtime scanner (so you can scan for viruses, but not automated.

do not use NORTON stuff :D

---------- Post added at 00:54 ---------- Previous post was at 00:52 ----------

Who has 2 anti-virus tools running?

A lot of people without realising..

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I have only AVG in my system.

The only reason why I pointed this out, because the anti-virus is realtime and can cause long hang-ups.

Would have look at it anyway... Could also be that there is a leftover from the past.. (of previous products)

Could be another prob, like other members suggested, like hardware, acpi, and .. ..

My first check on xp is always check the disk chkdsk c: /f (press Y) and reboot..

There are tools to control what is started: start.. run .. msconfig :shhh:

Also clean the machine ccleanr, and have a look what is started...

DRIVERS are also low level so..

Thanks for your info my friend.

But I think Mike came closer to my problem.

I am sharing info nog given by others on a topic of course ..

Just addons... :coffee:

I hope you get it fixed

The suggestions so far, whilst helpful, are all guesswork. Before you do anything else first try to work out what the cause of the system hanging is. To do this you need to have a look in the system logs and see what was exactly logged at the times when the system froze. These logs can point you to exactly the cause, or at least some Google searches to reveal it.

To look at the logs, right click on "My Computer" and select "Manage". Now go to the System Tools/Event Viewer section and select System and scroll through to look for any yellow Warnings or Red errors flagged in the list and the times that match when your system froze. The source shown for these events will indicate the service or application that was to blame. It will also show an event number which you can google to find out more. Also look in the other Event Viewer sections to see if any other events were flagged yellow or red.

If you find some of these events in the logs post what they are here and I might be able to help.

You did also mention you are using AVG. Uninstall that ASAP. It might be free, but it isn't good. It can conflict with a lot of hardware and other software and cause system freezing and hanging. I highly recommend the free Comodo security suite (virus checker and firewall) as a replacement.

There are really a huge amount of free Anti-Viruses now, so I really don't know what to install. Others say AVG is good, others not. Others say F-Prot is good, others not.....blah...blah...:blink:

@Phantom

did you do the chkdsk scans? HDD errors is the most common cause of the type of system freezes you describe, it will not hurt to do it and will confirm the drives are OK.

Antivirus causes all sorts of "discussion" on here, so my suggestion is to remove AVG run it for ten mins without antivirus and if the problem persists then AVG was not the cause so put it back on again.

As H said the logs can give it away but some things are quicker to do than googling logs like the removal of the Wireless card, pull it out start up, if the problem persists then it is not that either so put it back in!

One thing you can do to get to the bottom of this is to run an app like Coolbeans Sysinfo (free) it shows amongst other things CPU usage on a bar chart - does the CPU go to 100% when the lock up occurs?? If yes then it is more than likely software related - do the ctrl alt delete and see what is using the cpu. If it does not go to 100% then I still go with the HDD problem or hardware related.

Gary

do you have indexing and search enabled?

could be a hard disk failure... some bad sectors, maybe weak sectors... it would worth to download HARD DISK SENTINEL and use it to see the health of your HDD's... Had the same probs , and apparently there where 2 bad sectors in my HDD, that were automatically rellocated...

Like previous post some addons:

If you think it is a real hard disk problem, clone the to DVD writer using ghost for dos boot cd. (usual sources..)

After you have a good image of the HD you can do a full format to rule this out.

Nobody mentioned SMART technology, it is over 10 years old know :readit:

Check if it is enabled in BIOS or download a tool to read it! If you do not know it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

You do need to be careful with SMART. Some motherboards and HDD make combinations can hang the system when it is enabled. Especially with Maxtor drives.

really? never had any probs with SMART as of now Harrison...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harrison

You did also mention you are using AVG. Uninstall that ASAP. It might be free, but it isn't good. It can conflict with a lot of hardware and other software and cause system freezing and hanging. I highly recommend the free Comodo security suite (virus checker and firewall) as a replacement.

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The only virus software, beside mcafee in the dos days* I have actually kept running was AVG. Because unlike the most commercial pest control suits, its not that intrusive, and doesn't bog the computer down. But I never liked having to run such things anyway. Probably why I never used Windows on my home computers for a longer period of time. Now I only have macs.

But I recently had a faulty hard drive myself (had a full backup, thank god), and the computer kept freezing up and sometimes crashing. After replacing that, the system works without a hitch.

*I recall having the Ping Pong virus on my fathers XT, a bounching character-ball that kept on hitting the limits of the computer screen. Quite funny somehow, but not as funny as my friends prank with a "virus emulator" of the cascade virus that he put in the boot sequence of his mothers, who was a teacher, computer. I wish I was there to see the look on her face when the characters on the assignment she was writing started falling to the bottom of the screen in an age where viruses were almost unknown.

Quote:

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The only virus software, beside mcafee in the dos days* I have actually kept running was AVG. Because unlike the most commercial pest control suits, its not that intrusive, and doesn't bog the computer down. But I never liked having to run such things anyway. Probably why I never used Windows on my home computers for a longer period of time. Now I only have macs.

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It is a misconception that Macs don't get virus or trojan attacks. It's why the Mac has its own virus checkers after all and viruses, worms and trojans for it to catch. Just google iBotnet if you don't believe me.

Same is true for firewalls. Just cause you are on a Mac doesn't mean you can live security free. Hackers can still get in. Keyloggers can still be added to your system.

Using a Win98 Boot Disk, at the DOS Prompt:
Format MBR, Boot from XP CDROM & Re-install the OS using the Format NTFS option.

Whilst all this is going on, consider not using AVG again. It killed my 875 Chipset based Rig in a similar manner & was not even repairable in any instance. It only takes an hour to re-install & if you've already been clever by partitioning your hard drive, you won't loose any Data. ;)

Kin

Interesting to see you have had similar issues with AVG Kin. I've found loads of things it conflicts with in the past. Stopping systems booting, certain processes from loading at startup. Conflicting with USB memory card readers... etc. Not worth it.

There are so many other better free virus chechers out there. And as I said before I highly recommend Comodo.

However, before going to the extreme of nuking the whole OS install and starting again, which is the default PC support procedure for many companies, it is much better to actually track down what the actual cause of the problem is. If it is a failing HDD or software issue these will all be logged in the system logs and easy to spot. Just reinstalling the OS can mask the problem for the short term, but if it is some failing hardware it will only be a matter of time before it returns.

And everyone recommends AVG & so on.... :roll:

It's a sad state of affairs that Pee Cee's have to be bogged down by such software & you can only Blame Bill & his cronies for that.

Kin

Can you blame Bill? Virus, trojan and worm infections are written to target the widest audience for maximum effect. Windows being the dominant end user OS, it is the one being focused on.

The Mac doesn't have many virus or other infections in comparison because of its small market share, so it isn't of that much interest to hackers.

In the Amiga days we needed virus checkers. It was just the software delivery that limited its spread to floppy disks. If Amiga's had the internet back then I think it would have been very different. Even the ST had them too, but we didn't care much about them getting infected now did we? ;)

Linux servers need just as much security software running in the background as Windows based PCs. Firewalls even more so due to server attacks looking for code injection exploits or other ways to break into and obtain or corrupt data.

Instead of governments and big business focusing all their efforts to attacking home users using P2P and wasting money on it, they should instead be putting all of their efforts into targeting the hackers and malicious code writes. They after all are normally also behind the larger pirated software rings. This would in turn help remove the sources of these malicious code attacks on our computers and servers and make everyone's life better.

There was quite an extreme statement issued by the founder of Kaspersky last month. He wants countries that are common sources of internet attacks to have their whole internet access blocked from the rest of the world. Basically firewalling whole countries. Nigeria for example was mentioned. Others obviously didn't take kindly to this suggestion saying those in Nigeria need some way of reaching the outside world, and it would just lead to the internet becoming split into two. The good policed internet, and the bad underground blacklisted internet where all the corruption took place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harrison

Can you blame Bill? <snip>

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Absolutely. :nod:

Kin

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harrison

It is a misconception that Macs don't get virus or trojan attacks. It's why the Mac has its own virus checkers after all and viruses, worms and trojans for it to catch. Just google iBotnet if you don't believe me.

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Yes, there are threats to OS X as well, but just as in Linux the chance of catching them are rather slim unless you really try. (like download illegal software from untrusted sources). There are also threats in form of vulnerable applications that has open ports like ssh, apache etc (which OS X is shipped with, but only ran if user has configured it to do so) so one have to have a firewall and preferably know what has open ports, there are also threats if you use unknown (wireless) networks (you don't need a college degree to monitor the network traffic or spoof known websites when people surf on your wireless network) etc. Still, compared to windows it is a whole different ballgame.

Used it a couple of years ago, do not recommend it.

If you have a legal XP, like most people by know, "microsoft security essantials" is light, not very very good, but you can still have a responsive system.

As an addon you can install free-av without the realtime to do a manual check once and a while..

Antonis

Post #15 by Harrison is good. Good Karma for him.

Now, usb cards and wificards are notorious for freezing systems.

A mate of mine was working with a sound studio PC, and when he taxed the sound card, the USB wifi dropped network, his shared disks dissappeared and his computer freezed until it sorted it self out (timeouts and retries).

These are the kind of things you will see in the system logs.

Look for the word "timeout" combined with a driver identificator. It will most likely unveil the culprit.

My own freezing PC experience recently was also due to a bad driver.

Often upgrading drivers are reccomended as an approach, as it will in most cases eliminate problems.

But users in forums like this isn't most cases, as we all have up to date and correct drivers, right? ;-)

I managed to check the primary HD drive where Windows is installed (C:, not Amiga's C: ).:p

Everything is clean, as it stated at the end. I want to check the other two HD drives I have, which they have archives, music, videos etc files.

But I believe that it might be the PCI Wireless card. I'll try to buy another one.

If you have more than one hard drive in your Pee Cee, I'd highly recommend you get the Swap File off C: & put it to another physical hard Drive. Also, tweak the Swap File size by using the rule 2.5 x System RAM total & set Minimum & Maximum vales to the same calculated total.
Max swap file size under XP32Bit is 4GB, so set to 4084Mb to avoid problems. Also be sure to set the C: files size allocation to "blank" in both boxes & check the box saying "No Swap File".
Also be sure to set your actual Swap File sizes on your other pysical hard drive before you re-boot.

By doing the same size for Minimum & Maximum, the swap file area on your hard drive becomes a Static & Fixed size, thereby saving fragmentation.

Moving it to another Physical hard Drive means whislt your programs are being accessed from the Hard drive with the C: Partition on it, the Swap File can be utilised on another IDE/SATA channel, making operations much faster. :thumbsup:

If only one hard drive is a Computer, it still pays to set the Swap File values to equal amounts on the 2.5 x System Ram total Basis, as this helps stop chaotic fragmentation which all Windows based systems are just stuningly bad at. :thumbsdown:

My advice would be to pull all internal Add in cards, but un-install them from Add Remove programs if they have an installation entry. You can also hold F8 after the Verifying DMI Pool Data prompt to pull up the Windows startup options screen. Choose Safe Mode & get the swap file set up from there, once @ the desktop. You should not be dragged down with the normal Startup mayhem.

Also, go to the run command & type msconfig. Click the startup TAB & Uncheck everything for faster boot times & a whole lot less crap in your SYS Tray. This buggers up most Pee Cees's before they can even get going. A word of warning on this though:
If you rely on certain things being resident such as Virus Scanners etc, you could be stopping this services from being enabled. Expand each entry to see what programs you are disabling if you are
unsure.

Look in add remove programs & remove anything that looks dodgey. Some examples are Google ToolBar; Ask ToolBar; Any-fricking ToolBar; Remove them all & re-boot with a hard reset once they are all gone. If any suggest you need to re-boot becuase of shared .DLL's or such, follow it precisely or you could shaft the entire system.

Kin

It wasn't the Wireless PCI card nor any hard disk drive.

It was the LG Sata DVD-ROM. Now tell me what's happening...:unsure::mad:

How is the device boot sequence setup on your system? Is the DVD-Rom in the boot sequence before the HDD? Which SATA port is the DVD-Rom connected to? Most motherboards SATA ports are laid out in a sequence, numbered from 1 upwards, and more recommend connected the main boot HDD to port 1, and any optical drives further down the port numbering. It shouldn't make much difference, but it has from previous experience.

Are the motherboard drivers and SATA drivers correctly installed, and are the SATA ports showing correctly in device manager? And also is the DVD-Rom running in the correct DMA mode and not PIO?

Could it be a PSU issue? If the system is randomly freezing for a few seconds the DVD drive might be dropping out of the system and the OS is trying to locate it. Just a guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harrison

How is the device boot sequence setup on your system? Is the DVD-Rom in the boot sequence before the HDD? Which SATA port is the DVD-Rom connected to? Most motherboards SATA ports are laid out in a sequence, numbered from 1 upwards, and more recommend connected the main boot HDD to port 1, and any optical drives further down the port numbering. It shouldn't make much difference, but it has from previous experience.

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The LG DVD-ROM was connected via SATA port #3. The first two are the hard disk drives.

Quote:

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Are the motherboard drivers and SATA drivers correctly installed, and are the SATA ports showing correctly in device manager? And also is the DVD-Rom running in the correct DMA mode and not PIO?

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If connected it's working, but after that I get random freezes.

Quote:

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Could it be a PSU issue? If the system is randomly freezing for a few seconds the DVD drive might be dropping out of the system and the OS is trying to locate it. Just a guess.

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I don't believe it's a PSU issue, the LG DVD-ROM it's being disconnected one month now and I hadn't a single freeze.

Just a note: This LG DVD-ROM I had it first installed in my AmigaOS 4.1 machine (Sam440ep Flex). I don't know if this means something. I don't know if the SAM BIOS settings changed something (for example, DMA or PIO mode?).:unsure:

Don't worry about what might have killed the LG m8. Can you try another SATA DVD Device & make the system crash again?

If another DVD ROM works okay, the LG one just screwed itself. ;)

Kin

The problem is that I don't have another SATA DVD-ROM drive to check it and I'm really bored of doing this. I have my DVD-RW too, so it's ok.:)

A result then. :nod:
If it's of any help, I use to have a DFI board that couldn't handle more than one DVD/CD device. - Like, wtf? :blink:

Kin

What's this DFI board?:huh:

Er....DFI motherboard.... nForce 4 Chipset DFI LP UT SLDR

Kin

This is gonna sound quite odd, but I've seen Windows throw a right wobbler before with slightly knackered optical drives.
You may or may not realise, but whenever any application queries what drives are available or whenever you open a Windows Explorer window (this includes opening a File -> Open box or opening the My Computer window), Windows will check the drive to see if it has a disc in it or not (referred to as 'Auto Insert Notification')
It also does this whenever you open or close the CD/DVD-ROM drawer.

If the CD/DVD-ROM drive is slightly knackered, it will struggle to send the correct information back to Windows and Windows will sit there 'waiting' for it! This can cause the explorer.exe process to lock up (NOTE: explorer.exe is responsible for the taskbar, start menu, desktop icons, file -> open/file -> save as dialog box, other Windows Explorer windows such as Control Panel etc.) so this will make it appear like the system has crashed.

I had a similar problem, it turned out to be a dodgy IDE DVD-ROM (this was on and old PC) and Windows kept trying and trying to read the DVD-ROM which caused the whole machine to lock up (IDE uses CPU time to access it) so the whole machine would freeze!

As for the DMA/PIO setting you mentioned above, that's not something that changes on the drive .... it's a BIOS setting change.
If you have it set to PIO on one machine, then you take it to another, it'll probably be set to it's default on the new machine (DMA for newer machines, PIO for older/ancient machines)

Ok. :p

Please don't tell me about pc motherboards, I really don't have a clue. Please tell me about Amiga motherboards instead. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phantom

Ok. :p

Please don't tell me about pc motherboards, I really don't have a clue. Please tell me about Amiga motherboards instead. :D

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Er.....Your Thread Title reads....

BIG problem with my peecee (Please help me)

:nuts:

Kin :mrgreen:

Yes. my peecee. That doesn't mean that I'm a peecee expert. :whistle:

I'm full of useless/useful* information and just thought it'd be a good idea to share some of it ;)

* = delete as appropriate!

:blink: ....

Meh! :Doh: ....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kin Hell

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phantom

Ok. :p

Please don't tell me about pc motherboards, I really don't have a clue. Please tell me about Amiga motherboards instead. :D

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Er.....Your Thread Title reads....

BIG problem with my peecee (Please help me)

:nuts:

Kin :mrgreen:

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The lights are definitely on but are you home m8? :mrgreen:

@ woodycool

I've seen the same cr4p m8. I agree with everything you said there & it just annoys me so much using CD drives or DVD drives on Pee Cees. Multi-Tasking my fat arse! :roll:

Kin

Well, don't be confused m8. The lights are always on even when I'm not at home. You know, we use to leave the lights on for burglars... :p

I ain't confused in the slightest m8, really. :D

Kin

/....Kin wonders if Phantom has been burgled already.... :tumble