The Blue Peanut

I have this lovely new PC which I built about 2 months ago now. Beast of a thing, but I'm having number of problems which, having been a mac user for 2 years now, I'm hopeless at fixing. Don't want to hog too much forum space so I'll shove them all on one post- even a small hint to get me started would be great and sorry for the excessive text! (I'll try and avoid too much unecessarry rambling from now).

All attempted solutions have been tried through 2 different working internet connections- 1 through a company network with firewall, proxy, the lot, the other just a 2MB Virgin home wireless network so it's not a network problem.

Here's a list of the main problems:

1. Firefox crashes when trying to load new pages on an almost 2 minutely basis- this seems to be a flash based problem? It's version 3.0.13 (can't update due to problem no.2). It still dies in safe mode so it's not an add on, and it doesn't seem to be due to a certain script or anything- it's just any website with ads or videos or anything like that at all and it's probably 1 in 3-4 time it loads a page (and while trying to preview this it crashed on the login page...nothing fancy on there that I saw). I can't find out if it's just FF since IE8 and Chrome can't find the internet- they only see the ethernet port and not my wireless card even though FF has no problem with it. (technically another problem for the list I suppose)

2. exe files don't launch- they just crash whatever thing I try and open them from- this isn't all of them, e.g. Google Chrome downloaded and installed fine but Opera and Firefox both just crash the window. No idea where to start on this one, so I haven't really tried anything except getting the files from somewhere else- doesn't make a difference.

3. Antivirus...well- Norton 2009 came with my mobo but can't connect to the update server. Kaspersky has the same problem, but also can't connect to anything to verify it's own existence- it seems to be running but I can't even authenticate it as a trial version due to the lack of connection to the server. With this problem I've tried running KK from the Kaspersky site to check if a network virus of some sort is stopping me reaching the antivirus people but it isn't that, since that program found nothing and I can connect to everything except those mentioned earlier for those two providers at least.

4. Still going...when I run games it crashes. Lots. Supreme Commander I know is unstable as hell anyway but crashes on any game with more than 3 difficult AIs on skirmish, the expansion for that crashes even more, and on any game mode- it seems random. Crysis seems to run fine at pretty much max settings, but on later levels on any settings (seems more often on higher ones though? not hugely tested that theory) it freezes the whole system and I have to hold down that big power button. Crysis Warhead crashes more, but 95% of the time it can be Ctrl+Alt+Deleted, with some crashes resulting in a system freeze. Half Life two also randomly stops.

5. Last one- sound works fine through my MBox 2 Pro, and I now have a fully functional ProTools 8 working faultlessly (after minimal testing) along with a bunch of plugins which all seem to work ok, but when I play music on WMP, iTunes or Spotify it works for a while but then once paused for a few seconds it sometimes won't resume playback and all audio from the machine stops- going into prefs and sending a test tone results in 0 sound output and sometimes a system restart is needed, sometimes just disabling and re-enabling the device works. The media players when they stop just change the play symbol to a pause, suggesting they should be playing, but no sound comes out and the playhead just stays at 0:00 or wherever it is put, suggesting it's just given up. I'm a sound guy...I spend my life fixing stuff like this but I'm stumped- I only have 1 version of drivers to try but they work with ProTools so I can't see them being the problem, I've currently got the mobo onboard sound disabled through BIOS but have tried it on or off - no difference, other than that I am once again stumped.


After all that...no I'm not great with PCs am I. The gaming problems could possibly be the graphics card, since all games are crashing- never a good sign. I've done a memtest and the RAM came up with no faults, Vista's inbuilt reliability monitor didn't tell me much that I understood, except that it reckons the problems are with virtually every bit of software on my machine, which it can't be - at least 15 different programs have crashed or stopped in some way with one of the above faults. All the hardware is new, no hardware has been changed since being turned on for the first time except the addition of a Belkin G Wireless card. It may well be (and probably is) only 1 or two things causing all of the problems, but I can't find it as of yet. The minor overclock is not the issue either with any of the above - they all started before I did that and I've put it back to stock to check all the problems before posting this now.

I can post any info required to help fix all of that, any help at all is greatly appreciated since I'm pretty much stuck right now.

jcgriff2

Hi -

My 1st question - when did you last re-install Vista and have you considered it recently? If not, I think you should. It would help isolate software issues vs. hardware, if they exist.

The major problem that I see here is the existence of both NIS & KIS together. Either by itself could be responsible for many of your problems because of the personal firewall they each contain. Having both exponentially increases the potential for trouble because they fight each other for control. Even if disabled they can cause trouble.

I would like for you to remove both NIS & KIS and then see if the system stabilizes at all. Use the removal tools for each written by Norton & Kaspersky.

Download the Norton Removal Tool (NRT); save to desktop. Then go to desktop, RIGHT-click on the NRT icon and select Run as Administrator. When complete - re-boot.

NRT - ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...moval_Tool.exe

Repeat the same for KIS - http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208279463

Reset the Windows Firewall to its default settings -
START | type FirewallSettings.exe into the start search box | click on FirewallSettings.exe above | select the Advanced Tab | click on "Restore Defaults" | Click Apply, OK

Use AVG for a/v if you wish - http://free.avg.com/download-avg-ant...s-free-edition

Before you start, I would be interested to know if running in SAFEMODE w/ Networking is the same (crashes - IE, FFox, etc...) or do they work?

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

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The Blue Peanut

Cheers for the reply jcgriff, vista was reinstalled about 1 month ago when I got ProTools 8 running for the first time - that and kaspersky are the only new bits of software I've added since.

I should have said in the original post that I removed Norton completely before installing Kaspersky, so there's no conflict there.

Also the Firefox problem exists (on exactly the same version of FF) when running Solaris, although that is still on Vista through virtualbox.

I took the case cover off and had a poke around to make sure everything was seated ok and it all seems alright, although turning it on now, the .exe launch fault seems to have gone- they are still taking ages but do now launch. Also the FF crash is happening less so I think whatever is causing those two is related. Then since FF still crashes in safe mode that makes me think it's either a Vista problem, or more likely hardware...sadly, and not being just a seating thing it could be a CPU or GPU fault, which would be quite annoying.

The audio thing I seems to be seperate from the other problems, and I think is just a compatibility thing with my mobo, Vista and the soundcard, since that happened from the moment I connected it.

The Blue Peanut

Finally got time to do a bit more messing around with it, so I'm now running in safe mode with networking as suggested. It is very slow, but there have been no firefox crashes whatsoever and the .exe files previously not launching do seem to be working so that's quite encouraging. I'm trying to avoid wiping and reinstalling everything since I have some huge files I'd have to download again straight away (unrelated to the problems - I installed them since the issues all began except the .exe one) and loads of registrations for software and all that sort of thing...still I may have to unless the problem is found soon!

EDIT: As soon as I posted this I went to the MSN homepage, just cos it was there that it first crashed while logging out of hotmail. Well it didn't crash but it took about 20 seconds to respond at all, which felt a lot like what it does on the crashes and pauses it usually does, just without the white out and (not responding) message. I'm wondering if the problem is in fact still there but not as severe thanks to all of the graphics being removed?

joeten

hi this may help you get some info on your gpu http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/
you might also try sfc /scnw http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66...c-command.html and also chkdsk http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-v...windows-vista/ this can wait untill jcgriff has done his magic or when he thinks it would be of help

The Blue Peanut

Thanks! I've run gpu-z (already had it on my pc...totally forgot lol) and it all looks ok, nothing out of the ordinary coming up on there. Ran sfc again, third time so far on the pc, although the others were just for test purposes but once again nothing was flagged and it just closed itself once finished. chkdsk schedule for next boot- I'll post again if anything comes up. Right now, having run a few quick repairs on the registry and taken off a few processes it seems to be running better but the problems are obviously still there.

jenae

Hi, been away awhile, I see you say you built this rig yourself? What Ram have you? Also you mention some " quick registry repairs" what were they or are you running some form of reg repair utility?

The Blue Peanut

The full spec for my PC is on the dropdown menu under my name- the RAM is 6GB of Patriot Viper stuff, which the windows memtest tells me is performing fine...but then do I trust windows? Hmm... Anyway the registry repairs were just using Registry Mechanic, pretty trustworthy software I've used loads before. It hardly did anything either, plus that was well after problems began (it had absolutely no effect on anything that I could tell). It was just one more thing to try!

The Blue Peanut

Mkay now it's not booting at all- lights come on but that's about it. I took out and reseated the graphics card (more out of frustration than anything else) and it then booted up, passed a memtest again and said windows failed to boot so I'm going to repair install it when I can.

So I've found out that Windows might be the problem, and the graphics card isn't ruled out...but still I don't know for certain what is causing all of this.

jcgriff2

Hi -

Are you getting BSODs - or just APPCRASHes (white fading background, blue circle spinning endlessly and "Not Responding...". Or is it pure freezing requiring a hard shutdown?

Please follow the instructions to gather system info - http://www.techsupportforum.com/1871981-post2.html

Also, I would not advise further use of Registry Mechanic. There are no registry "errors" to fix -

[SOLVED] Registry Editors

Attach the zip file(s) to your next post.

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

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The Blue Peanut

As if to rub it in...I typed out an entire reply and then hitting the post button crashed the lot. Useful, but anyway here it is again.

BSOD- hasn't happened in over a month, since before the Firefox and antivirus problems started. Even then it was only on games, or more specifically Crysis, with some instances happening while playing Supreme Commander, although there is a well known AI fault with this which could be causing the crashes for that at least. I'm getting the APPCRASHes with firefox when trying to load almost any page- MSN being the worst culprit for some reason (maybe just the amount of stuff per page). It resolves itself after 20-30 seconds in almost every case though, with just a few exceptions.

Other than that it (as of a week ago) is freezing totally. This is happening sometimes once it's all booted up and working, e.g. I was transferring 10GB of stuff onto my external drive and with <20MB to go everything froze and I had to just switch it off. The more common problem though, which suddenly started happening within the last week, is that maybe 3/5 times I turn it on, it either gets to trying to load windows and just stops, or in most cases just makes noise and that's it- nothing comes up on the screen and it won't even reach the BIOS. Slightly worrying since that makes me think it's a hardware fault, not windows. (Hopefully if this is the case it's due to the only addition since building, the wireless card).

Anyway, I've attached the files you asked for.

Attached Files

System info for TechForum.zip (1.31 MB, 1 views)