[louuu]

hi and thanks in advance for your help.

NOTE: item 21 in my hijack this log is legitimate. its my spector software.

for the last 3 days my system freezes up and locks up where i cannot do anything. my only option is to cold boot the system down by holding in the power button for 5 seconds. this happens randomly and theres nothing specific that triggers this. it could be me going online. or maybe clicking my computer. or checking email. theres no one specific thing that causes this lock up. about 3 days ago i did 3 things and obviously one of these 3 has caused me a tremendous headache and has completely messed my system up. before that time, everything was running perfect for many months. heres what i did 3 days ago, all within one hour of each other. i upgraded my norton internet security from 2008 to 2009. i downloaded a free disk defragmenter program called auslogics defragmenter and ran it. i got this program because i read that it was much faster than the built in vista defragmenter. i have since removed this program from my computer. and my nephew downloaded some stuff off the internet too.

i tried to clean up my system myself to no avail. i ran a complete scan with norton internet security 2009, malwarebytes, the online kaspersky program and superantispyware and all of them came back clean. but im still having these problems where my system freezes and locks up. i dont know if i have a virus or something has messed up my windows software. the weird part is that all my system restore points vanished. i tried to go into system restore and there was no points to use! so whatever caused this, also wiped out all my system restore points as well. now system restore is saving points again, but my system is haywire and i dont know whats wrong. please help. below is my hijack this log.

NOTE AGAIN: item 21 in my hijack this log is legitimate, its my spector software.

[attachment=24176:HiJackThis_log.txt]

Edited by louuu, 29 October 2008 - 11:33 PM.

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Hi louuu...

I don't think you have a malware problem and have attached the log here for you. I've also moved you to the Vista forum.

Vista has a very effective defragmenting program that can be scheduled to run on a regular basis...mine runs every night. That being said, I think it's quite likely that the third party defragger you ran may have damaged the file system in some way. Let's run a disk check and see if it will straighten out.

Click the "Start" orb, click on "All Programs", then on "Accessories". Right click on "Command Prompt" and choose "Run as Administrator". A command session window will open. At the prompt, type chkdsk /r (note the space before /r) and press "Enter". You'll be told the drive is in use and asked if you want to schedule this to run on the next boot...type y and press "Enter". Type exit and press "Enter".

Reboot

The disk check should start just prior to Windows loading. This will be a pretty long process, be patient and let it finish. It may take upwards of 60 to 90 minutes.

If you end up back at a command prompt, type exit and press "Enter". It should boot to Windows once it completes, though.

Let me know if this helps with the hanging issues.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hi louuu...

I don't think you have a malware problem and have attached the log here for you. I've also moved you to the Vista forum.

Vista has a very effective defragmenting program that can be scheduled to run on a regular basis...mine runs every night. That being said, I think it's quite likely that the third party defragger you ran may have damaged the file system in some way. Let's run a disk check and see if it will straighten out.

Click the "Start" orb, click on "All Programs", then on "Accessories". Right click on "Command Prompt" and choose "Run as Administrator". A command session window will open. At the prompt, type chkdsk /r (note the space before /r) and press "Enter". You'll be told the drive is in use and asked if you want to schedule this to run on the next boot...type y and press "Enter". Type exit and press "Enter".

Reboot

The disk check should start just prior to Windows loading. This will be a pretty long process, be patient and let it finish. It may take upwards of 60 to 90 minutes.

If you end up back at a command prompt, type exit and press "Enter". It should boot to Windows once it completes, though.

Let me know if this helps with the hanging issues.

wannabe1

[louuu]

thanks so much for your quick reply. im going to go ahead and do what you told me to do. i have just one thing to tell you and then ask you first. i have 2 hard drives. i use drive c as my main drive. my second drive is f and its strictly a backup. once a week i have a program called casper that makes an exact copy of drive c to drive f. so if i ever lose my hard drive, the most work i can lose is one weeks worth. unfortunately my weekly copy was made after i had this freezing problem, so when i had no restore points to try, i tried switching drives. being that the copy was already made from c to f, the backup f drive also had no restore points and froze up too. so i switched them back to their normal position and will not make another copy of my c drive until its fixed. my question is this: if i run this chkdsk /r, will that fix both disks? if not, when i make a copy of c to f, will the repairs copy too? or is there a way to run this chkdsk /r on drive f too? as soon as i hear from you, ill do what you said to do. please reply, thanks.

[wannabe1]

You can run the disk check on the storage drive from drive properties window. Do this after you check the system drive.

Let's change the command a little to specify the system drive. Instead of typing chkdsk /r at the prompt, type chkdsk /r c:

Once the system drive has been checked and you are back in Windows, click the "Start" orb, click on "Computer", right click on the storage drive, and choose "Properties". In the Properties window, click on the "Tools" tab, then on the "Check Now" button...make sure there is a check in both boxes in the window that opens and click on "Start" to initiate the disk check on that drive.

[louuu]

hi again. i ran the chkdsk on both drives successfully but unfortunately im still getting the random freezing problem where i have to cold boot. today i left my computer on when i went to work and when i came back, it was in frozen mode. i could move the mouse around, but i couldnt click on anything. there was an hourglass picture, but nothing could be clicked. i tried bringing up the task mgr hitting control alt delete, but that didnt work either. nothing worked and i was again forced to cold boot by holding down the power button for 5 seconds. now i have booted up again and the computer is working again, but its a matter of time before it randomly freezes again. what is the next step that we can try to resolve this? and i know you said you moved this to a windows forum, im just wondering can their be some underlying virus at work here? im guessing you may not think it is malware since norton, kaspersky and malwarebytes all came back clean. what is the next step to try and repair windows if you think its a windows issue besides the chkdsk? this problem is very frustrating and when my computer freezes up, i unfortunately lose whatever i was working on if i hadnt saved it already. im pretty computer literate and this is a problem ive never experienced before. ill wait to hear back from you and thanks again in advance for your kind help.

update: 4 days have passed since i typed the above and in those 4 days, my computer has froze up about 4-5 times a day. some freeze ups are simply the mouse being able to move, but i cannot click on anything and i see an hourglass. even control alt delete doesnt work. and now some freeze ups are where it appears the entire screen seems to fade out, almost like greyed out and transparent and freezes up and when this one happens, i cannot even move the mouse. both freeze ups force me to cold boot and hold the power button for 5 seconds. and sometimes when i reboot, it reboots into a frozen screen and i have to cold boot yet again. any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated as its very frustrating the last few days with this problem. thank you.

Edited by louuu, 29 October 2008 - 06:27 PM.

[Troy]

Hi Louuu,

This only started not long ago, correct? Can you think of anything that happened around the same time as this started? This could be something significant (like a power failure in your house, even if the computer was turned off), or installing a new program, or uninstalling programs, deleting system files, Windows update applied some patches...

Are you able to identify what is happening every time the computer freezes? (eg. Every time you plug in a USB item it freezes)

Anything you can think of that may help pinpoint a potential cause.

I see you have run CHKDSK... did you only run it once (per disk)? Sometimes the errors on the hard drive take a few CHKDSK scans to come clean again... I would like for you to run it again, and keep an eye on the % level - if it jumps backward, then it's finding errors and fixing them. If this is the case, keep repeating CHKDSK scans until it does not jump back anymore.

Get back to me on these things, and I'll keep thinking.

Troy

[wannabe1]

Sorry for the delay in replying...my day job has seemingly taken over my life this last week.

Click on the start orb, then right click on "Computer"...choose "Manage". In the management console, expand (click the little triangle) "System Tools", then "Event Viewer", then "Windows Logs", and click on "System". Look through the entries in the right pane and note any recent errors...post a few of the most recent here for me. You can disregard the HTTP errors...Microsoft says they are normal in Vista unless the machine is part of a domain.

The symptoms you describe sound eerily like the UAC is kicking in, but is not displaying the "Continue" window. There may, in fact, be some malware in there and I'll ask a malware expert to have a look at the log you posted in your initial post. They may want other logs to see if there may be something in there that isn't showing up in the HJT log...but let's have a look at the system log errors first.

Does this only seem to happen when you have devices attached? Or does it happen even without devices attached?

[louuu]

hi troy. at the exact time this problem started happening, i did 2 things within a 5 minute span and that was the only 2 things i did different in weeks. the first was i updated my norton internet security from 2008 to 2009, and the second was a downloaded a free disk defragmenter program called auslogics disk defragmenter. i did run the auslogics defragmenter because the vista defragmenter was so slow. then within an hour of doing these 2 things the crashes/freezing/locking up started. i assumed the norton upgrade wouldnt cause this, so i immediately uninstalled auslogics from my system. i went to use system restore, but whatever caused this to happen also wiped out every restore point i had, so unfortunately i couldnt do a restore. i do remember choosing the option for auslogics to wipe all temp files from my computer first before starting the defrag, as the auslogics setup said this was ok and would let the defrag run faster. by the way, restore is running correctly again now. as far as what causes the freeze up now, its nothing specific. i could simply click a url, open my mail, open device manager, right click my desktop, etc. theres no one thing specific that causes the freeze up. it seems to be completely random. i did not see the percent level go backwards at all when chkdsk was running. i will run chkdsk again as you suggest. thanks for your help, it appreciated.

[louuu]

hi wanabe1 and thanks for your reply. i totally can understand how your dayjob can take over and i sincerely appreciate you coming back to help me. troy did reply and ask that i run chkdsk again, but since i did not notice any percentage going backward when it ran the first time and you have now replied requesting different info, i will go ahead and proceed to supply you with the info you requested and we can hopefully move forward from here to resolve this. to answer your questions, i have uac turned off. and as far as any devices, no, i have no devices at all being connected or disconnected at all. ill get the info you requested and attach it in my next post shortly.

[Troy]

Hi louuu,

Yes I think we can leave the CHKDSK alone for now. It's good to see wannabe1 back again (life sure does get busy sometimes!).

I do not think a disk defragmenter would cause this error. I would be tempted to point the finger at Norton. Perhaps you could try uninstalling it and reinstalling it (make sure you aren't connected to the internet).

I also strongly advise to turn UAC on. It is a security feature, and not annoying once you get used to it. I now expect it, and get worried if I use my XP computer and it's not there... (And then I remember XP does not have UAC).

Be sure to answer wannabe1's queries, also, especially about the System Event Viewer.

Troy

[louuu]

heres a list of the errors i found excluding any http ones. the below 3 errors each came up a few times. choicemail is my email spam filter and ive had it for years with no problems. now since this freezing has started up and causing problems, it has also seemed to affect choicemail. i dont believe choicemail is my issue, i think whatever has caused these problems to start has also affected choicemail. i have emailed choicemail tech support as well regarding the choicemail hanging error to see if they can suggest something to fix specific to choicemail. ill wait to hear back from you, thanks.

error: The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
OMCI

error: The Choice Mail service hung on starting.

warning: A service process other than the one launched by the Service Control Manager connected when starting the Choice Mail service. The Service Control Manager launched process 2804 and process 2812 connected instead.

Edited by louuu, 30 October 2008 - 08:02 AM.

[louuu]

hi troy, ill go ahead and disconnect from the internet and uninstall and reinstall norton again now. im not sure if it will install without an internet connection because i think it needs to be online to verify the subscription status, but ill try. if it requires me to be online, then ill just put the internet connection back on. as far as uac, the reason i turned it off was it seemed to pop up every other minute and was annoying. maybe that happened because when i was first getting my computer up to date programwise many months ago, it was verifying each program installed. since many months have passed and i no longer need to install anything else, ill take your advice and put it back on now. thanks, now ill go reinstall norton and then wait to hear back from either wanabe1 or you.

Edited by louuu, 30 October 2008 - 08:23 AM.

[louuu]

i just turned on the uac and rebooted as the computer requested. when windows restarted, 2 things happened. it came up with a windows explorer error and i had to hit the option to start windows explorer again and then explorer opened up properly. and the uac asked me for permission for my rivatuner program (which controls fan speed and ive had this program for years). when i said yes to the rivatuner program it opened correctly. then i rebooted again to see what would happen and the exact same 2 things happened again. i just want to give you this info because before i turned on uac, i did not get this explorer error. and also, how can i go into uac and tell it to always allow my rivatuner program to run without asking me? thanks in advance for your kind reply. now im going to reinstall norton.

[Troy]

Hi Louuu,

Can you take a screenshot of this Explorer error? A picture says a thousand words.

Troy

[louuu]

i can take a screenshot, but i dont know how to do it? can you tell me how please. to describe it in words, its a simple box that pops up. it says windows explorer has stopped working and the only option is for me to hit start again. when i hit start again, my screen blinks and then explorer starts properly. i rebooted 3 times to test this, and all 3 times this happened. also, do you know how i can set my rivatuner program to always start without uac asking me every time upon boot up? thanks.