Hi People.

I've got a problem with the computer and wondered if you kind souls could help me out.

It keeps crashing with no apparent reason. When I say crashing it just goes black as if I've pulled the plug out and then it works again. It then goes through the whole disk checking routine etc.... and it seems to be getting worse

It's driving me nuts, I've just lost two hours work.

Purely off the top of my head - could it be a heat related problem? Try running it 'case open' and pointing a fan in it as a temporary solution. If that helps I'd advise checking all the internal fans are working and not clogged up with fluff. If you've added new hardware recently you may need more fans to keep it all cool.

Other thing that would cause such a dramatic crash would be the PSU. Again, check the fan (might be the overheating protection) and swap it out if in doubt. They're cheap enough (~£10) if you havn't got a spare.

Chris

sounds like you have sasser worm !!! have a look here for more info


http://www.spyany.com/program/article_wm_rm_Sasser.html


About Sasser.Worm

Remove this worm viurs using McAfee Virus Scan 2004!

Sasser is a worm virus that spread itself by exploiting the LSASS vulnerability described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011. Sasser.A restarts Windows XP/2000 computers when it attempts to affect this computer by exploiting the LSASS vulnerability. When this action is carried out, Sasser.A displays the following message on screen:




How to Remove Sasser.Worm?

Follow these steps to remove the Sasser.worm.

Disconnect your computer from the local area network or Internet.
Click Start > Run, type:
shutdown -i

and press Enter.
In the Remote Shutdown Dialog that opens, change 20 seconds to:
9999
and click OK.

Reconnect the network/Internet connection, click Start > Windows Update to install all necessary patches automatically.

Terminate the running process.

Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to open Windows Task Manager, then select the Processes tab. Scroll down the list and search for the following processes:
avserve.exe
avserve2.exe
skynetave.exe
any process with a name consisting of four or five digits, followed by _up.exe (eg 64354_up.exe).
If you find any such process, click it, and then click End Process. Exit the Task Manager

Disable System Restore (Windows XP)

Remove the registry entires.
Click Start > Run, type 'regedit' and click Ok.

Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun

In the right pane, delete the following entries:

"avserve.exe"="%Windir%avserve.exe"
"avserve2.exe"="%Windir%avserve2.exe"
"skynetave.exe"= "%Windows%skynetave.exe"

Close the Registry Editor.

Search for and delete the following files:

avserve.exe
avserve2.exe
skynetave.exe

Update your antivirus tools virus definition and run a thorough scan on your system.

Check the fans are running (not unkown for them to quit after a couple of houurs running) and all the plug connector are in fully home -- also check the heat sink is in full contact with the surface of the cpu.

Failing that if you have xp it is likely to be the sasser worm(s) Symantec have a removal tool for free down load.

Another possible cause is a bad chunk of memory.

Downloaded the repair tool and it seems I'm not infected... oooohhh errrrr missus.

Looks like the fan first.... then if it keeps doing it .... some new memory...

Then.... givemethebighammer

.....then install XP

My laptop has been running a bit hot for a while and started crashing while i was using CAD packages, which was really annoying. I took the cover off the fan and blew the dust out, there were some huge chunks of fluff and now runs alot cooler.

Thanks guys. I still don't know what is causing the problem. I'll have to try the above. It's done it today again and I've lost an hours worth of work.

I've got XP installed.

Have you checked for any spy ware that may have been placed on your computer. Download Spybot and run a check. I used to have all kinds of problems with my laptop shutting down and running slow, found I had over 132 "unwanted" programs running in the background.

David

Vince,

Atleast in the meantime save everything every 10 minutes or so- then you'll only lose that much.

If you're using Microsoft office there's an autosave feature you can set to a desired time frame. ie. autosave every five minutes or so.

HTH,

James

I've been using office and when working I've saved the work. Then pressed CTRL S every few minutes.

Crash bang.... go back to the document.... most of it gone.... One totally cheesed off guy.:-(

Do you think he'll be able to fix it for you then?. We had a problem with the wifes Athlon 1ghz machine shutting down just recently. I looked in the bios and it was set to shut down at 70* so I raised it to 90* and set it to alarm at 80* so we would know when it gets hot but the alarm hasn't gone off and it's been o.k. since. It was something that was like it when we bought it and it never got changed till it caused a problem.

I bought a 1.4GHz Athlon with mobo and various other bits including a case from Scan. That would just die and re-boot for no apparent reason.

To cut a WHOLE load of waffle short, the 'AMD Approved' power supply was insufficient to power it. I bought a meatier on and Bob's your mum's live in lover.

It would sometimes stay up for an hour, other times it would reset halfway through booting 2000. There was no rhyme-nor-reason as I saw it at the time.

Worth a try as a PSU's only £30 or so. Now it only dies when 2000 does the BSOD.

Cheers,

Neil.

Neil's comments just rang off a big gong. I have had PCs with fading power supplies behave exactly like this.

Definitely worth a stab.

Pete

Thanks guys. I'll go out and get a new power supply on the strength of what you've said. Brilliant.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Hey Vince did you resolve your problem?

I have been having problems similar, but much more frequent with my brand new system.
Sometimes it will work for 30 minutes or more and others will reset as soon as started.

Had similar problems with old machine until it was corrupting all the data including OS, which is why I bought new one.
Now I don't have one reliable computer at all and if I had any hair would be pulling it out!

I tried the spyware detectors, but they seemed to spark a reset.
I have reformatted and reinstalled the OS that often now I know the serial number by heart!

Terry

Terry,

It being a new machine, I suggest re-seating your memory, making sure your processor is lavishly greased, and checking all motherboard connections.

Also found this thread with several good suggestions. This guy's problem was a bad HD cable:

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=330360

Pete

have you got a virus scanner installed and your windows up to date? it sounds like it could be blaster or suchlike.

if it's not a virus, it's the heat.

I ordered it last week but it still hasn't arrived.

I will put it in and let you know as soon as it arrives. Thanks again all who replied.

quote:

---

Originally posted by pbura
Terry,

It being a new machine, I suggest re-seating your memory, making sure your processor is lavishly greased, and checking all motherboard connections.

Also found this thread with several good suggestions. This guy's problem was a bad HD cable:

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=330360

Pete

---

Damn! That must be frustrating.

Seeing as this is the second computer with a problem, could it be your electrical wiring? A staticky cat?

Maybe you could try disabling your power management and temperature sensor stuff in BIOS.

Friggin' computers!!

I started to post a reply to this thread lastnight.... crash bang.... gone.... bo***cks. Never got it finished....

Well here we are....
Changed the power supply.

No good..... Still the same.... crash bang...

Spoke to a friend who installs computers into doctors surgeries...

He thought that it could be the Vid card... and lent me one... Couldn't get it to boot with his PCI card...

So went to the "shop" and bought another graphics card.... another 40 quid.... tried to insall the drivers from the CD... not compatable with winxp... went on the net... downloaded 22meg......... 22 meg for a driver?????????????

Anyway... installed it.... run OK...... then re-booted because it needed to insatall the driver....

Then re-booted....... opened up photoshop.... OK.... great guns..... then openned up the work...... great.... cut... paste... cut.... paste....F00*IN.... BANG.....

off again.

TIS now going in the bin..... all of it.... I'm totally fed up with the lot....

Motherboard. Memory, HDD, CPU, Vid Card.

New Intel P4 stuff ordered.

See you all next week. If I can manage to boot up from a floppy and still have the CD drive working that is.

Woho..... Sorted it at last.

It was one of the processors. I removed it on Saturday and it's been fine ever since.

Thanks everyone for all your help.

quote:

---

Originally posted by pbura
Damn! That must be frustrating.

---

quote:

---

Seeing as this is the second computer with a problem, could it be your electrical wiring? A staticky cat?

---

quote:

---

Maybe you could try disabling your power management and temperature sensor stuff in BIOS.

Friggin' computers!!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spyderman
A what? What is a staticky cat?

---

I may have missed it, but did you try another Power Supply.

I had a brand new 430W True Power that would shut-down if you bumped the table.

Also are you running XP, Win 2K, or any other NT variants? These will restart on error as default from the install. You can disable this auto reset function to diagnose problems.

MS put in the Auto Reset function because their OS BSOD's so often that servers must be able to reset themselves.

I have not tried another power supply as I didn't think it was that (could be wrong tho' ). It is hapening to two different computers.
I hope it is not the psu as I bought it from Ebuyer.com and they are B.....ds for ignoring their returns requests. Have had some fans waiting for three weeks to return as they arrived damaged.

I'm running XP and have now disabled the auto-reset, thanks Pete. If we'd had a cat and I'd cought it any where near my PC it would be getting flying lessons!
I'm awaiting next error now. When it did go to BSOD it usually showed "Machine_check_exception", but I don't know what that means!

Thanks for the help so far guys!

Terry

Terry, did you get your trouble resolved? According to Microsoft, your hardware supplier should be able to explain the codes:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329284

Looks like a warranty issue!

Pete

Pete, no joy yet!
Have checked with component web sites for compatability errors and only hint was for graphic card. Downloaded newest drivers and it crashed!
I tried it with a different card and had the same issues.
It is definately more stable before SP1 is installed. In fact it is impossible to use after!
I am getting different BSOD errors showing now like "IRQL not less or equal, page fault in non paged area and the latest - Stop:c00002a {Fatal system eror}"
Have been in touch with suppliers and they have replaced MB and memory. They seem to think it is software based.

Disabling the auto-reset has made no difference, it is still going to BSOD.

Terry

Terry, this is an ugly problem. Check this out:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/search/results/?Keywords=irql+not+less+or+equal+xp&Where=1

Disabling the auto-reset was so that error messages would display so you can record them. They typically tell what driver is causing the problem, or give a memory address from which you can identify the device that is acting up. Take a good read through Part VII, Appendix C of the XP Resource Kit:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmd _stp_hyzf.asp

Pay close attention to all the parameters of your error messages. Right now, I'm not sure if c00002a is part of the message code, or the area of memory in which the error occurred. I suspect the latter, in which case you can identify the device by looking at the 'Resources' tab of each device in Device Manager. Probably one of our techies has a better way

I noticed that one program that causes both the "IRQL" and "non-paged" messages is Norton Antivirus. Apparently, Symantec has some info on their website about "IRQL not less or equal" but I wasn't able to get at it because I don't have NAV.

Another suspect area is unsigned device drivers. Here's an article about how to identify iffy drivers and test them:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308514&sd=tech

The XP Resource Kit has a very thorough troubleshooting section for stop messages, with hex dumps and debuggers ad nauseum. I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out.

Please feel free to post more details of error messages, etc. I'd be glad to help any way I can.


Pete

Pete, the second link you give does not work (resource). Any other links?

In the past twenty minutes this damn thing has either reset or gone to BSOD at least six times.
It is not consistent with the errors either, but most often is usually "irql not less or equal" or "stop 0x0...." and a different end code "7f, 8e, 0a" etc.
Whatever I try has so far been in vain. I'm almost suicidal at the moment!


Terry

Terry,

The link's OK, just not opening to a particular page I had it on. Use the index tree over on the left side to open up Part VII, Appendix C. Everything you ever wanted to know about BSODs, and more.

The main thing is to capture all the information from the error messages, then either call Microsoft or go through the troubleshooting steps described in the same appendix.

Just had an idea: use a digital camera to record the buggers.

How's the computer in safe mode? If it's OK then, that would indicate a bum driver.

Computers are significantly less complicated than, say, TV sets. You'll beat the bastard, so keep your chin up and, uh, stay away from sharp instruments

Pete

why hasn't anybody suggested the best cure for this possible software problem.
format the hard drive and install some variant of linux, just think no BSOD, no virus problem, best yet no IE problems. If you go and buy one of the linux mags at the moment it will only cost you the price of the mag for SUSE 9.1.
I run mandrake 9.2, this has been up now for 6 months nonstop.

I have tried Linux in the past, but could not get used to it. It was like stepping back in time and working with DOS!
Plus there is the problem of running current software that depends on MS Windows. Virtually every piece of software I own or use needs Windows. I don't know enough and would guess most others are not enthusiastic enough to learn Linux. I just want something to do what it says on the tin!

A reason I am not to keen on new cars is the inability to tinker without first getting a degree!

Terry

I think I finaly found out what the problem was all along with both computers!

It turned out to be the co-processor fan on my older machine. Was still running but started making noises. Replaced it and it has not missed a beat since. Ironically before discovering the problem I installed Suse 9.1 Linux on it and it proved very reliable and extremely stable. I now run this constantly on this machine.

My newer machine which is now a year old, turns out to be the processor causing the problems. Even though this had been sent back twice and they say is working fine. This time when it came back with the MB the Bios was set to processor type 1500/266. I tried it at this setting and it seemed very stable. The processor is an AMD 2600/333. I altered the Bios to 2600/333 and it would not even boot. Same with 2600/266 setting.
When set to 2400/266 it is running ok, but seems to take a while after booting to settle down. Can't check email for about 10 mins after booting.
Looks like they have been testing the processor on minimal settings and refuse to replace it. Shan't buy anything from Komplett.co.uk again.

Anyone know where I can get an Athlon 2600/333 for a good price?
Might even try upto 2800 if cheap enough as that is all my board will take I think.

It seems strange that processors that are so dependent on good heatsinks have such small heatsink pads on them!

Terry


ps. Vince, did you ever get yours sorted?

[Edited on 8/4/05 by Spyderman]

It sounds more like memory not clocking up problem than processor. My mate had some extra fitted by someone because his cad program was crashing and when it came back it was running as 1100 processor instead of 1600 and memory as pc100. The memory was taken back and tested and proved faulty, replaced and now runs normal again. I've just had mine in bits, win2000 memory paging stop error. I reseated everything and cleaned the dust out and it's working now. edit:- What's the heatsink pad? The square bit in the middle of Athlons is the processor core. I usually scrape the heatsink goo off and replace it with some arctic silver compound.

[Edited on 8/4/05 by Peteff]

I have had the memory changed several times and it has not altered anything.
The only components in the PC that are the same as when the problem started are the graphics card and the processor. The graphics card I checked by swapping in a different card and made no difference.

The memory is DDR400.