[Masurame]

Hello everyone!

I'm making this thread to see if anyone has any insight in to why my comp keeps crashing when I'm not using it!

It started nearly a month ago when I was starting out on Aion, my comp kept 'chopping' and freezing completely and I thought that I may be running the specs a little high even though I was getting around 50-60fps. Then all of a sudden my comp crashed and I can't remember if it had a BSoD or not but I think it did. Anyway when I booted it back up it said "disk read error, press ctrl alt delete to restart.' I turned it off and tried it again in an hour or so and it worked fine without even running a repair just asking if I wanted to boot in safe mode etc.

About a week past and I was watching a DVD on my xbox and my comp was running idle in the background and it did it again, this time I didn't see a BSoD because I only heard it go off. SAme thing happened when I boot my PC a few minutes later.

The other morning it did it again and I just turned it off and I booted it up 30 minutes later and it worked fine.

However, tonight it went off (again when idle) and didn't come back on right away. It first just stayed on the first 'ACER' screen for ages, and I had to select boot options after restarting for it to boot up. After a few attempts to boot up it wouldn't work, screen went black, windows vista loaded for 10 minutes and repair wouldn't come up.

Eventually repair came up and said something about taking an hour to fix and I just played my xbox sat in front and 10 minutes later it rebooted normally!

After discussing it with my unhelpful comp enthusiast friend he either suggested it was a recent buggy install or a failing HD. My HD had failed early this year but ACER replaced it and its worked fine. This computer is only a year old from the shop and I've only put a 8800 graphics card in, the default one being weaker. After browsing the internet (ie, google) and looking at HD failure symptoms, mine don't seem to fit, no odd noises or dodgey file saving.

Anyone got any ideas of what it might be and how to fix it! I'm kinda panicking I have important files and need to do work so I want my PC!

Thanks in advance, Jim

[valis]

my knee-jerk is either a bad hd or overheating.

if you go into the windows folder, if there's ever been a blue screen, there will be a folder in there called 'minidump'. They are named by date, so if you could zip and attach the latest that will allow us to figure out what the machine is telling you.

thanks,

v

[Masurame]

Here you are... the dates are a bit wrong but hey...

[Masurame]

no joy?

[valis]

not yet......at home now, on a linux box, don't have the debugger installed obviously.

Let me see if I can get someone else to take a gander. May be a bit, as it's the weekend, but we'll get it done.

v

[Rollin' Rog]

Debug session time: Sun Jun 21 09:30:34.824 2009 (GMT-8)
BugCheck 1000007E, {ffffffffc0000005, fffffa6000ceeaab, fffffa6002125e38, fffffa6002125810}

Probably caused by : NETIO.SYS

For what it's worth this is a Networking driver often flagged when there are issues with Wireless drivers or installed Firewalls (not Windows FW)
=================================================


Masurame,

Tim's asked me to take a look at those -- but the last is for June 21st, so I doubt they would be relevant to the current issues.

Have you gotten more since then? If so, they are not being stored.

run sysdm.cpl and select Advanced > Startup and Recovery. Make sure "small memory dump" is the one chosen under "write debugging information" and the location should be %systemroot%\minidump

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I rather doubt that the BSODs will identify the problem though, which does kind of sound like it is drive related.

What problems persist in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking?

Can you give a concise summary of the present issues? You can use the following "performance" questions as a guide, ignore those you have already answered >>

1 > is it very slow to boot up?
2 > do programs open slowly?
3 > does the same behavior occur both on and off the internet. Or with no connection at all?
4 > does it matter how long the system has been on, and does a restart improve things?

Slow performance issues can often be due to overheating, so if the system is faster after it has been shutdown for a while and then restarted -- that would be especially suspect. To check for possible problems here, shutdown, open the case and blow out any accumulated dust. Then turn it
on and check to see that the fan is working. Sometimes it helps to physically clean the fan.

If a laptop, check to see that the vent is clear of dust and verify the fan is working. Temps and fan speed can usually be monitored with SpeedFan (except on Dell desktops), a free utility.

5 > if you do a ctrl-alt-del, do any processes show excess cpu usage, other than System Idle Process?

6 > If you open the Device Manager (run devmgmt.msc) and select the entry for IDE ATA/Atapi and select the Primary IDE > Advanced Settings, does it say the "current transfer mode" is Ultra DMA or PIO?

If it says PIO or even just DMA (rather than “ULTRA” DMA, first ensure "Use DMA if Available” is selected, then select the driver tab and uninstall the driver and reboot. Then check again.

Alternately you can run the script on this page >> http://winhlp.com/node/10

*note that the above will not apply to RAID drive configurations.

===========================

Also >>

With the Task Manager "Performance" tab open, report figure for

Total: (under Physical Memory) this is your total installed ram -- "physical" memory
CPU Usage variable over all processor usage.
Memory variable with current use, expressed as a percent of total at the bottom

Page File -- under the "System" column

>> Also go to the Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools.

What is your "Windows Experience Index"? Run a fresh test of this.What property showed the lowest score?

Open the "Advanced Tools". Do you see anything here flagged as problem performance issues?

--------------------------------------

If you open the Event Viewer (run: eventvwr.msc and look at the System Log, what are the common repeating errors of the last few days?

Are you seeing any "NTFS" errors?

Has a recent chkdsk been run on the drive?

http://www.windows-help-central.com/...ta-chkdsk.html

The log for chdksk will be available after reboot from the scan in the Event Viewer Applications Log > Wininit entry, these can double clicked for a description and copy / pasted

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, post a HIjackThis Scanlog taken in normal mode if possible.


Download and install HijackThis. Run it and select "do a system scan and save the log file". Then copy/paste the contents of the log to a reply

http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en...ols/hijackthis

[Masurame]

hey just turned on my pc for today gonna have a go at those suggestions. Thanks a lot for that :P a good samaritan no doubt!

[Masurame]

I know what you mean about the bluescreens thats why I was unsure. I know those ones back in june only happened when I was running things with Hamachi. Therefore being a network issue... I never did fix that either :P. Ah well, I was trying to play a copied version of starcraft

1 > is it very slow to boot up?
Nope, takes less than a minute.
2 > do programs open slowly?
No, they aren't 'instant' but I wouldn't say slow or slower than usual. Dragon Age takes less than 10 seconds running off steam.
3 > does the same behavior occur both on and off the internet. Or with no connection at all?
No different.
4 > does it matter how long the system has been on, and does a restart improve things?
This is a bit odd because it is when I leave the computer and its never done it when actually in use, save for the AION incident. I wouldn't rule that it out though it could just be luck I'm not using it.
5 > if you do a ctrl-alt-del, do any processes show excess cpu usage, other than System Idle Process?
Not really. As typing this the strongest process is firefox.exe *32 running at 95k.
6 > If you open the Device Manager (run devmgmt.msc) and select the entry for IDE ATA/Atapi and select the Primary IDE > Advanced Settings, does it say the "current transfer mode" is Ultra DMA or PIO?
Ultra DMA mode 6.

Gonna try and do a chkdsk.

[Masurame]

Chkdsk complete. How do I find out the results and if their was any problems detected?

[Masurame]

Nevermind. Here is the Chkdsk result.

Checking file system on C: The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is ACER. One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended that you continue. Windows will now check the disk. 289984 file records processed. Deleting orphan file record segment 51895. 2064 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 60 reparse records processed. Index entry conime.exe of index $I30 in file 0xc7d9 points to unused file 0xcab7. Deleting index entry conime.exe in index $I30 of file 51161. Index entry conime.exe of index $I30 in file 0x1206b points to unused file 0xcab7. Deleting index entry conime.exe in index $I30 of file 73835. 353038 index entries processed. 0 unindexed files processed. 289984 security descriptors processed. Cleaning up 942 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9. Cleaning up 942 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9. Cleaning up 942 unused security descriptors. 31528 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... The USN Journal entry at offset 0x4b93dd80 and length 0x4b16c60 crosses the page boundary. Repairing Usn Journal file record segment. 36316272 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed. CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table (MFT) bitmap. CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap. Windows has made corrections to the file system. 304094384 KB total disk space. 271526268 KB in 253465 files. 132308 KB in 31529 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 404616 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 32031192 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 76023596 total allocation units on disk. 8007798 allocation units available on disk. Internal Info: c0 6c 04 00 4d 59 04 00 9b b3 07 00 00 00 00 00 .l..MY.......... b5 0d 00 00 3c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....<........... e0 64 5e 77 00 00 00 00 50 23 03 ff 00 00 00 00 .d^w....P#...... Windows has finished checking your disk. Please wait while your computer restarts.

[Masurame]

And I checked to see if there was any NTFS errors on the event manager and there was no results.

Sorry these are in seperate post but I'm doing them step by step :P

[Masurame]

Bump for answer

[Rollin' Rog]

Ok, well we can rule out an IDE configuration issue.

If this seems to occur during periods of idle -- make sure you are not using a screen saver and have all Power Settings set to "never", including the option to turn off the disk drive after a period of idle time.

Firefox has a reputation for high CPU usage, especially on pages that use Flash -- this is more a problem for thin laptops overheating than desktops -- but heat is still an issue worth considering if these problems occur under stress conditions.

FWIW > http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10...g=2547-1_3-0-5

See if you can monitor temps (there is a graph/log feature) using SpeedFan and look for any rise more than 30 - 35c from a completely cold boot >>

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download337.html

You might try to verify whether there are flash videos or ads running when you experience this problem -- and whether they seem to occur with Firefox mostly.

Some errors were fixed in the chkdsk log, but no "bad blocks" reported there.

If you are getting BSODs, check the configuration for saving them and see if any new ones are created.

If the settings are correct and you see nothing in the minidump folder -- it may be of a type involving the drive itself and occuring in such a way that nothing can be saved.

Make sure "automatically restart" is unchecked, and note the BSOD type, parameters, and driver file, if one is mentioned.

Keep us updated on the description and pattern of the current problems -- this is still a little vague to me, anyway.

And post a HIjackThis scanlog so we can see what is actually running >>

Download and install HijackThis. Run it and select "do a system scan and save the log file". Then copy/paste the contents of the log to a reply

http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en...ols/hijackthis

-----------------------------------------------------------------

If problems are persistent and relatively predictable, you can try a "Clean Boot" and follow the directions there for isolating something starting up which may be a problem. This will not help with hardware issues, and is not practical for very infrequent and unpredictable issues.

Run msconfig and select the "Services" tab. Check "Hide Microsoft Services" and then disable the rest. Also uncheck "load startup items" on the general page.


Now restart and test the issue at hand

If no problems, run msconfig and recheck half the disabled items on the Services tab. Test again. If the problem recurs, UNcheck half the items you just checked to narrow down the culprit.

If the problem didn't occur, check the other half, so all the Services are enabled -- proceed to do this on the startup tab as well.

Get the idea? You want to isolate the problem to a specific startup if possible.

Note: if you already have items unchecked under msconfig > startups and are in “selective” startup mode – you should note what these are before beginning. They will need to be de-selected again.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135/en-us >> writen for Vista but applies just as well to XP

[Masurame]

I don't think it has anything to do with Firefox. I just used it as an example of whats running the highest at the time of testing.

[Masurame]

I'm gonna run those test now and upload them and whatever but do you have any idea of what it might be. Do you think it is a HDD issue, or something else?