mrtickle

for a while now i have had trouble with my dell vostro 200, it has been sluggish and over the past couple of months it has been getting progressively worst with files becoming corrupt, at first appearing to be random, and now ive had several stop errors, ( first i think was 0x0000008e and another was definately 0x0000007f) , files such as MOM.eexe, CCC.exe, sprtcmd.exe and dsc.exe have become corrupt, so have many others, as far as i can tell when i open a file or run a program a file may become corrupt related to that program, or just a file in the same folder as the file i opened. Another issue which has worried me a fair bit is that norton internet security package keeps on disabling certain parts such as antispyware, i cant ever seem to correct it, the fix it button just doesnt work, and whatever i correct goes back straight away. so i tried reinstalling it, and repairing it with several problems due to corrupt files, so reinstalled it and just downloaded the updates and again its just not workign with just errors left right and cenre.

Does anyone have a clue whats up, i have suspicions about corrupt memory issues, but with the norton down, viruses could have got through, ive ran AVG and found nothing, (AVG got corrupted as well and was a bummer to uninstall), used malwarebytes which found nothing as well!

Here are the pc specs:
Dell Vostro 200
XP Pro SP3
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz, 1333MHz, 4MB cache)
2048MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro
500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA with 16MB DataBurst cache

thanks for any help

Dunedin

Hello mrtickle

Yes, this could be a RAM problem. Check it out first anyway
Swap over the sticks of RAM or take one out and try again with only stick #1. If it does not help or makes things worse swap the sticks and try again with only stick #2. Running with one stick at a time will identify if you have a bad stick. Try moving the RAM to a different slot as well.

OR
You can put either of these free programs on a floppy and test the RAM. Let them run for hours to do many passes if you can

memtest86
http://www.memtest86.com/

Windows Memory Diagnostic http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Memtest on CD
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/256/mirrors.php

Use your CD burner to write it onto a CD as an ISO image

mrtickle

thanks for the advice, only problem is for some reason the computer in question wont run the program (memtest) from boot, i think it must be because every time it powers up for some reason chkdsk runs?!? i have installed it correctly because it successfully ran on another computer (a laptop if this makes any difference).

Dunedin

Ckdsk may be wanting to run if there is a problem with the hard drive
Has chkdsk ever run successfully?

Try this
Srart/Run and type in
cmd
OK

At the prompt type
chkdsk /r (there is a space before /)
Enter
Reboot and chkdsk will run
If chkdsk finds any errors it could take hours to complete, so be prepared for that.

Did it find and fix any errors?

To stop chkdsk running at every boot up, follow the above procedure, but at the prompt type
CHKNTFS /D (there is a space before /)
Enter

This should restore CHKDSK to its default/normal behaviour (regardless of whether your drives are fat or ntfs).

Memtest problem
Check that the boot order in the BIOS is
floppy (if present)
CD/DVDROM
Hard disks
SAVE AND EXIT

mrtickle

chkdsk seems to do a hell of a lot each time, deleting indexes and recovering orphaned files etc, got memtest to boot, let it have 5 passes and found nothing, windows thing found nothing aswell. any other ideas apart from a complete system restore?

thanks

Dunedin

It looks like a problem with the hard drive if chkdsk was busy.

Is it not behaving any better now?

If it is possible back up all your files then try running the manufacturer`s diagnostic on the hard drive.
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

If you don't know the make of hard drive Hitachi Drive Fitness Test will work with any make.

The Hitachi 3rd download is for a bootable CD

Also 5 passes is really not long enough for a memtest run
.

spike2me

It sounds like your Hard Drive is going out. You can run the diagnostic tests or just cut your losses and purchase a new HDD, put your old HDD in a external USB enclosure to restore files from your old HDD to the new.