[wishfire]

For some strange reason my pc has begun to run quite slowly recently. I ran an anti-virus scan to see if a virus was the problem. After a couple of things had been found that was infected had been deleted my computer began to run that little bit quicker than it had been doing and everything seemed as fine as it could be. But during my playing of a game on my pc that I very much enjoy (sims 2) my pc seems to go slow and after a while it restarts itself thus loosing any unsaved data i had on my game. Sometimes wen it restarts itself it tends to come up with a blue screen and a paragraph of writing i just simply cant read in time before it cuts off and goes back to the restart page.
Now this is peeing me off imensley as all i want to do is play my game. I can't afford to pay for any anti-virus software such as Norton or anything like, all i can afford is my monthly internet bill. So if anyone has any ideas of what my problem is and any ways around it, can you PLEASE help!!!!?????

[kiwiguy]

Firstly, you can run a free AV program, there is no excuse to not use one.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Download Free AVG. It will auto update daily, its actually very good.

Secondly, you are probably infected with spyware and adware (these are not viruses, so are not detected by an AV program)

Download AdAware and Spybot. Also free programs, just run both every few days. No cost involved.

As to the blue screen error, if you disble the restart on error you get to see the message before you need to power off and restart.

Control Panel - System - Advanced - Startup and Recovery/Settings - uncheck "Automatically restart...." OK out.
Write down the error and post it back here, with some details of what your computer hardware is.

We assume you are running XP.

[kiwiguy]

On the other thread you say its a Stop error 0x0000008e

That is possibly caused by over temperature, but could be other things. As it occurs when playing a game I would suspect temperature. May need to have the dust cleaned out of the CPU heatsink/fan.

[wishfire]

Thanks for your help, I have downloaded Adaware and Spybot and hopefully that should help me a lot in getting rid of a few nasty things. I will also see if i can give the interior a good clean out of dust as well and see if that helps.

[wishfire]

I've manage to get the msg that comes up b4 my pc reboots:

"IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If this is the first timeyou've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Setup Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical Information:

***STOP: 0x0000000A (0x805D3527, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x805D3527)

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance"

That I am aware of I haven't installed anything recently onto my pc except after the errors occured which were Adaware, AVG and Spybot. I can't seem to find where i can get all the information about what hardware I have on my pc.