REPEATED CRASHING

[Paul Narramore]

I am a computer neanderthal, I admit it, nuts and bolts I can understand, but not this blithering thing. In short, it crashes a lot, like EIGHT TIMES in the last one and a half hours. I've sort all sorts of advice, much of it conflicting, I've defraggged it until it's blue in the face, I've CNTRL-ALT-DELETED it, and now I've been told about DISC CLEANUP. I've deleted many of my email files, but it still has spells of crashing.
What I need is for a kind peron to come to my home and in exchange for lots of Hobnobs and cups of tea, sort the kerchung out.....please. :cockeye

 

[Tobers]

This is going to be a tricky one as it can get a bit complicated. You need to figure out what is causing it to reboot/crash, and to do this you need to isolate which applications are causing it to crash.

So, try starting Windows in "safe" mode. This will prevent most drivers and startup programs from running.

Start in safe mode by pressing the F8 key as Windows is starting up. Best thing is to either press it repeatedly until Windows has started in safe mode, or hold it down as Windows starts.

Dont worry if the screen looks different as it will be using a default low-resolution display driver. You wont be able to access the internet.

If it is stable in safe mode, for some time (i.e. leave it running for a couple of hours) then the problem is likely to be in one of the applications you are running once Windows has started. You'll need to then figure out which application it is that is causing the problem - I'd use msconfig to remove apps from the startup sequence one at a time until the crashing comes stops, then you know which app it is. Long winded & complicated though.

If it still falls over when in safe mode, it is most likely a hardware problem (maybe related to temperature buildup??) or could be a nasty virus. You'd need to get a decent virus checker to scan the PC to eliminate the virus issue, and then you'll be into hardware replacement bit by bit.

Sorry - no easy way round this...if you lived nearby I'd pop over but Kent is a tad too far.

 

[Paul Narramore]

Tobers

Thanks very much for that advice but I recently got to know an IT specialist who came round yesterday and spent four hours 'playing' with it. It was a shame he insisted on telling me every step he made but this is loosely what he did and found.

Although we've got Spybot, it's been some time since we used it and he found 1101 unwanted items clogging the system. He also installed Ad-Aware and Netscape which then found another bunch of stuff we didn't need.

The de-freg didn't seem to want to work (I've been told I should reload this software sometime) so he installed Diskeeper, however that would only defrag 45% of what is there. Puzzled.

Whatever, the crashing seems to have stopped and everything is much faster. He tells me that it's important that the computer, just like a car or motorbike, is maintained, and that I should defrag and Spybot/Ad-Aware once a month.

There, that's thoroughly exhausted my computer knowledge!

 

[judge]

Running Spybot /Ad-aware once a month???

Well I'd do that probably but the fact you had 1101 files found marked as 'iffy' suggests you have no firewall (hardware or software)) installed on your computer, if you do then I suggest it isn't working very well.

Spybot/Ad-aware are 'after the event' solutions, you need to prevent them getting in there in the first place.

If your ADSL is connected straight into your PC then that is the route of your problems - well that and Windows 98

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

Paul - look here for good ideas

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21711&highlight=programmes

 

[Paul Narramore]

Andy,
My ADSL?

 

[John Smith]

Crashing??????

Buy a MAC.

 

[judge]

Andy,
My ADSL?

ADSL = Broadband = that little wire that runs from the phone socket on the wall to the left of the pc via the filter into your modem.

What I couldn't see on sight was a router which might have a firewall in it.

 

[Fanum]

Paul......the time and stress it will take to track the bad programme/registry entry down and fix it isn't worth it IMO......

Copy all your emails using the import/export option, save all your documents, do a files ad settings backup to cd then reload windows from fresh........it'll take an hour max, then import your emails back again, import the files and settings and copy over the cd......you'll end up with a fresh clean install which will be much faster from the word go.

 

[Fanum]

And as Judge says, get a firewall installed.

One of the best (and it's free) is Zonealarm....download it from HERE and use their free spyware checker first.

 

[Paul Narramore]

My wife tells me we have a McAfee firewall installed. After my friend spent a lot of time clearing things out, the whole shebang is much quicker and other than periodic spells of a few seconds when the screen freezed, the crashing seems to have stopped.