Computer help?

amclark2

I'm having some problems with my computer; can anyone help?

It's an older Dell laptop, running windows XP, and I think IE 7. It keeps getting into these weird freeze-up loops, where ie locks up, then if I shut IE down, it won't start backup, and then basically nothing works. Once it's locked up, ctrl alt delete won't do anything, and the normal shutdown won't work either, so I end up having to hard shutdown with the power button.

If I have task manager up before it locks up, then it will show a process for IE, and each time I try to open it a process will show up, but it won't get any further.

I went through msconfig, and turned off some unnecessary startup items.

Avg has done two or three virus scans with nothing showing up.

I've cleared the Internet history and all the temp stuff.

ITunes is giving me trouble too; similar lock- up thing, and I was unable to successfully unload or upgrade iTunes.

Any suggestions?

greg

I had similar problems with my previous desktop at home. Basically that was a memory issue in that there was not enough RAM for what I was trying to do. Gradually adding more things for it to do just slowed it down, until it would then go into a loop and do no more. Adding more RAM did solve it for a couple of years, but I suspect that may not be possible with a laptop. In the end I changed computer. However, I am no computer expert so there might be some totally different reason

Doofy

I agree with Greg, sounds like some insufficient RAM probs I was having on my XP laptop (also a Dell). I was in fact able to upgrade RAM on that machine; ordered chip from Dell, installation was a snap.

Also possibly try updating IE? Some problems I was having with that benighted browser were fixed by updating recently (although not so systemic as you describe).

greg

However,if it is a RAM problem, don't update IE before you get more memory, as each version seems to eat up more RAM. Even something like a recent itunes upgrade might have caused some of the issue, as again, the upgrade takes up more RAM.

amclark2

Ok; that makes sense; the problems started when I was using Guvera, and when using Guvera, IE was using a ton of ram. I'll look into if it has room for more. Thanks!

Doofy

Oh, Guvera, hmm...fwiw, I can't get IE to work with Guvera, because of "security" settings. Nor did I try too hard to make it work, as all is well with other browsers (aside from the recent site probs).

luddite

Keep in mind that an WinXP machine (ie: a 32-bit OS) can only recognize/utilize 3GB of ram. So if you currently have a single 2GB stick in there and put a 2nd 2GB stick in the 2nd available slot... you'll only effectively increase your memory from 2GB to 3GB.

When is the last time you did any preventative maintenance: A disk defrag? A clean install of the entire OS?

I might suggest running a utility that will test/verify your ram (ie: memtest 86).. if you can run 2-3 passes without errors then that would be a good indication that it's not failing or defective ram. But if you do get errors that would indicate that swapping out the ram might be in order and the source of all sorts of random wonkyness.

amclark2

I think it's got 1 gig ram at most; a defrag is definitely in order too; I just hadn't ever seen fragmentation cause the sort of problem I've been getting, but I will do that too.

greg

Therefore I am fairly sure that with 1 GB RAM that is the most likely cause of the problem. It might help checking what comes up as part of start menu when you turn the laptop on that you are not actually going to use that time

Doofy

Btw, when I did my upgrade, Dell had the info on how much RAM my machine could take. It's still not max'ed out, I think. Really become much more functional after the upgrade, and in fact is still the computer that manages all the music (now networked, with an external HD).

Katrina

I'd do a defrag, too, if you haven't done one in a while. Normal PC maintenance for XP.

IE should start up when it's the only app running, so I'm not sure it's a memory problem. Do you know how to look in the application event log? Does it say anything in there concerning IE? Same for itunes, does it give any message?

amclark2

I didn't know how to do the event log, but I looked it up and will try it; that seems useful because it did go from ok, if old and slow, one day, to problems the next.

Yes, yes, I have been negligent on defragging - I ran the defrag test and it looks like a box of toothpicks in there. I will do that too, I just have to clear some space first.

jackedUPjazz

I am not a computer person but speaking from personal experience my computer started acting weird and doing strange things intermittently. In hindsight I now know that it was trying to tell me that my hard drive was dying. So word to the wise, do a back up of your data before you do another thing. I have lost two hard drives to complete failure in the last 30 days and I backed up literally hours before the worst of the crashes.

luddite

JUJ makes a very valid point. The older your hardware becomes the more likely your HD will eventually give up the fight. If the problems are not simply a result of lack of memory it is probably more likely that the issues are related to a defective/dying HD than defective/dying memory.

Once you got things backed up... run a checkdisk on the drive to check/repair any bad sectors... (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265#method1).

A couple weeks ago my son's PC locked up on him... (it's going on 7-8 years, I think) I ended up running the Windows repair utility with pretty much involved running checkdisk/repair. His PC worked OK for a two weeks or so and then locked up again. I re-did the windows repair utility and ended up running the checkdisk/repair utility 2-3 times in a row. His PC has been running for about 4 weeks without a re-occurrence of the same incidence.***

Good luck.

*** After the first time my kids' PC went out on them I stumbled across a good deal on a low-grade PC to replace their aging PC... But I was subsequently able to resurrect their PC (twice) with the checkdisk/repair utility. If it goes out a third time I'll be scrapping that PC entirely and replacing it with the new one I bought a month or so ago that has been sitting patiently in the corner.

amclark2

I do plan to backup before doing anything else. Fortunately I backup important stuff (music, pictures) frequently, so backing up should be relatively easy.

thomnottom

1 - BACKUP YOUR DATA!

2 - CHECK YOUR BACKUPS!

3 - Get CCleaner - the free version with no support is just fine.

4 - See step 2.

5 - Close everything and run CCleaner. On the main part Analyze and then Run to get rid of most the cruft.

6 - I would also suggest running the Registry cleaner and fixing the problems that come up (do the backup to be safe) multiple times until that's clear.

7 - Go to the Tools section and Startup and see what can easily be disabled (feel free to post the list here for suggestions).

8 - Defragment. I'd even suggest downloading Defraggler and using that instead.

9 - Run updates, do everything critical or important, then go back to step 2.

10 - Get Chrome

kargatron

RAM is very cheap nowadays, especially for older machines. I'd prioritize maxing your ram via ebay, laptops are easy to upgrade, and you'll probably spend $20-40.

amclark2

Hmmm - it looks like I have an "IRP hook" root kit. AVG can find it but can't seem to fix it. I'll try malwarebytes maybe? Any other suggestions? Damn.

amclark2

I think I got it; I found a free root-kit rooter outer (tdsskiller), it seems to have gotten rid of the problem. I also de-fragged, and did some things to reduce memory use. I downloaded Chrome too. Sooner or later I will get some more ram, but for now, I'm back to working on the only thing I really use a computer for - downloading music, and putting it on ipods. Guvera even works for me!

Thanks for all the help. I'll be going back through this to look at some of the other suggestions for improving things.

cafreema

Have you tried clearing your cache? I'm told that solves all problems.

Craig

amclark2

My cash is pretty well clear - otherwise I'd buy a new computer.

denver

This sounds like some issues I've been having--I may go into details another time when it's not so late and I've had less wine.

Thom, are the extra features in the Professional version of Defraggler worth $24.95?

Katrina

Well, I'm not Thom, but a lot of those PC utility packages just put a different windows interface on the same microsoft utilities that are built-in.

thomnottom

@denver - Probably not. Don't want to diss them because Piriform has put out some of the best free Windows utilities for many years now (Recuva is also on their webpage and is excellent for finding accidentally deleted files), but it seems to me that they went overboard with their prices when they created the pro versions. It might be worth it if you're really trying to extend the life of a PC, but overall I don't think the hard drive optimization stuff is that worthwhile.

@Katrina - In this case they are separate utilities. Defraggler can even replace the built-in MS defragmenter.

Doofy

This conversation is making me defrag. Didn't even realize my Win7 computer was defragging itself weekly in the middle of the night.

Katrina

Yeah, that's a nice thing about Win7.....if you leave your PC on.
It's still a manual process on XP & Vista, though.

jonahpwll

Awful dream last night. I was sitting in front of my computer and watching one spam window after the other pop up on my screen, accumulating by the hundreds, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was my only computer, I had no information backed up, and I had to begin my eMusic article in less than an hour. Also, I think my house was really ugly too, sorta like a school gymnasium that anybody could walk through. Well, I guess there were a lot of different elements to that nightmare, and not all of them centered around computer help.

But it was scary.

Doofy

Speaking of scary: Blue Screen of Death on basement music computer this morning. Maybe time to sign up for Amazon cloud

greg

I got a blue screen too this afternoon. All is working fine now though, but I have been out to buy a new hard drive as I heard of someone recently who had their external drive die on them. So overnight I'm going to do a back-up of music and photos.

greg

I bought a 500GB external drive, quite neat, plenty of space for my music and photos. That now means I have two complete backups (on three or four year old machines) and the new one with the two groups of files I'd hate to loose. For £40 it was worth it, just for security

thomnottom

I also highly recommend an online backup solution if you can't keep a copy at someone else's house or where you work. I use Backblaze (from which I have restored TBs of data over the web), but you can also check out Carbonite and CrashPlan.