[Nanee5_08]

Been in the malware section, and my computer is clean. They said to come here. My computer is locking up rather frequently, and sometimes to even accomplish anything I have to run in safemode w/networking. It does not lock up then. (I thought maybe if it was the motherboard overheating, it would lock up there too, but it don't) Which leads me to believe it's something else. I would really hate to recover this thing...again. So any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

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Hi Nanee5_08, Welcome to BC.

I just got through reading over your HJT log thingy and this caught my eye Boo -->

Total Physical Memory: 352 MiB (512 MiB recommended). <-- Have you considered increasing your memory?

I don't know if it will help with your problem or not, but I don't think that it could hurt.

Wendy

[wendy k. walker]

Hi Nanee5_08, Welcome to BC.

I just got through reading over your HJT log thingy and this caught my eye Boo -->

Total Physical Memory: 352 MiB (512 MiB recommended). <-- Have you considered increasing your memory?

I don't know if it will help with your problem or not, but I don't think that it could hurt.

Wendy

[Nanee5_08]

Ok.. I have deduced something. Please reply as soon as possible anyone. I did a destructive recovery today, and everything was running mega smooth...up until it got finished downloading and installing all the windows updates. Then, it started freezing up again! So I am figuring that one of the xp updates is bad, but I'm not sure which one it is! Please help!

[Ztruker]

What video card do you have? Is there also an integrated video connector?

[Nanee5_08]

I have no idea. I have had this computer forever and I have not changed anything that came with it, except updating it. Like I said, when I took it back to specs, it was fine. It didn't start locking up until it did the last set of windows updates for SP2.

[Ztruker]

Have you ever opened up the computer case and cleaned out the accumulated dust on the fans and CPU heat sink, as well as other places? That can cause some very weird problems. Would be worth doing even though you say it boots and runs okay in Safe Mode with Networking.

The reason I asked about your video card is that often causes this kind of problem with SP2. It would be worth downloading and installing the latest driver available for it, just to see if it makes a difference.

You can see what yours is by clicking on Start then Run, typing devmgmt.msc and pressing Enter or clicking OK.
Click on the + next to Display adapters. You video card will be listed there.

Also, what is the make and model of your computer?

If this doesn't help you can try the following:

First, physically disconnect from the Internet to prevent a malware infection while your Anti-virus and/or Firewall are disabled in the following steps, then do a normal boot:

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab and disable everything (I mean everything).
Do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, click on the Services tab. Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system. Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best.

Reconnect to the Internet when your AV and firewall are active again.

[Nanee5_08]

Well, I did everything under the sun, and it just kept getting worse and worse. It finally wouldn't start up at all, so I sold the stupid thing at the pawn shop for parts! I'm pretty sure it was the hard drive, as the same thing happened to another computer. I feel bad it couldn't be resurrected, but thank God for my new Vista laptop! I'm gonna buy another one in May! Thanks for all the help!