[S.O.A.D.A.]

Hello,

I had a problem on my computer today which is new to me (and to it ).
Freezing.....
I was running several programs, Azureus & Firefox among them, as I usually do, many tabs open in Firefox. Performed an updates for two of the plugins I have in Firefox - pretty sure they were AdBlock Plus and Fast Video Downloads (it's disabled). It asked me to restart Firefox, so I diid, and it froze during loading. Just became non-responsive. Then my entire windows started freezing - the HD light was out cold, showing no activity - until all I could do was reset. And all started working fine again. Now, I am pretty well protected from malware: Avast, Ad-Watch, SpywareGuard, SpywareBlaster, Online Armor, all with the latest updates, I do frequent scans & checks, so it should be quite clean.

Just not sure what to make of it, if there is anything to fix or anything to look out for....

Thanks,
SOADA.

PS:

My computer is an AMD Athlon Dual Core x64 3600+2.01GHz, 1GB RAM. My WinXP Pro (Version 2002) is 32 bit, if I am not mistaken.

Edited by S.O.A.D.A., 18 February 2009 - 02:40 PM.

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And all started working fine again.

...and?

[Broni]

And all started working fine again.

...and?

[S.O.A.D.A.]

Not sure. Doesn't seem right to just forget about it.
Thought maybe someone new about it.

[Broni]

Is the computer OK now?
Errors happen.

[S.O.A.D.A.]

Everything is fine.
I guess It's been a long time since Win98, when such things wouldn't even make me blink : )

[S.O.A.D.A.]

It happened again, yesterday.
Once when I was double clicking an avi movie file (which would open VLC 0.8.5) - my computer just rebooted, no warnings, no nothing.
Some time later when I was watching a movie (using the same version of VLC) it suddenly made a few weird noises (like VLC was experiencing trouble), VLC stalled and then the computer froze - no response to anything, HD light stone dead, only way out - reset.

In both cases I had Firefox running with multiple tabs open.
Plus, I'm experimenting with various anti-spyware programs, and quite a few of them were running, though, only one Anti-Virus (Avast 4.8 Professional) and one firewall (Online Armour, free version).


Any way I could get to the bottom of this?

[Broni]

Intermittent problems...we all love them, don't we?
Close Firefox. Go Start>All Programs>Mozilla Firefox, click on Mozilla Firefox (safe mode).
Try to operate Firefox in Safe Mode, for a day, or so, and see what happens.

Couple more things:
1. Navigate to: C:\Windows\Minidump folder.
If you see any .dmp files, zip all of them, and attach zipped file to your next reply.

2. Check Event Viewer for some clues.

[S.O.A.D.A.]

Intermittent problems...we all love them, don't we?

We live for them.

Since the "occurrences" I've been running Firefox in normal mode for almost 48 hours, and nothing happened.
I've got no C:\Windows\Minidump.
The closest thing to it I could find was C:\WINDOWS\pchealth\ErrorRep\UserDumps which contained 2 .hdmp files from 2007.

Checked the Event Viewer, entries from around the time of the crashes.

In System, 2 things:

1) Two errors issued by Service Control Manager:

Timeout (30000 milliseconds) waiting for the Windows User Mode Driver Framework service to connect.

And:

The Windows User Mode Driver Framework service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

2) Some TCPIP warnings:

TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

No warnings or errors in Application.


If you could recommend a good tutorial and any otyher resources for learning how to interpret the logs, I'd be grateful.

[Broni]

TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

The above is a normal warning, coming from M$ limitation for so called half-open connections, which is 10. Nothing to worry about.

Just to make sure...

I would suggest that you start a new topic in the Malware Removal - HiJackThis™ Logs Go Here area.

Before you post a log click on this link --> You Must Read This Before Posting A Hijackthis Log
this will give you a few preparations to make, as well as instruction for posting your Hijackthis log.

If you are still having problems after being given a clean bill of health from the malware expert, then please return to THIS thread and we will pursue other options to help you solve your current problem(s).

[S.O.A.D.A.]

Thanks,

Will do.

[Broni]

Cool

[S.O.A.D.A.]

Hello again,

Well, I did two things:

Removed Spyware Doctor, replacing it with other software.
Ran several Malware scans, removed some stuff - no serious threats were discovered, though. My machine was pretty clean and well protected.

Don't think I had any significant malware. My guess is that SD was, shall I say, not too agreeable to my system. All is well now, system stable.

I have also defragged C: (and all the others) using JKDefrag. C had never been defragged before, in the 2 years I've had this computer. I know....

Now my computer is fast, finally.



Thanks for your help mate,
SOADA

[Broni]

I'm glad, things are better

[S.O.A.D.A.]

Snark Still At Large......



Hello again,

Errr, I'm afraid the problem has not been fixed yet. Happened twice again - 4 days ago and today. I had been away for a couple of hours, and when I returned I discovered my computer had restarted. On Saturday I thought removing Ad-Watch would do it, but it didn't. Only thing I could find in the event log (System) - and the same message appears among the very last events before every crash is a warning issued by DHCP.

Last two warnings today:

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 0016E65ABC02.  The following error occurred: 
The operation was canceled by the user. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.

Followed by this (from TCPIP)

The system detected that network adapter \DEVICE\TCPIP_{0171A13A-E92D-41A5-AAEB-C0132A8A5FD6} was connected to the network, and has initiated normal operation over the network adapter.

On Saturday the one before last was the same as today, followed by this (DHCP):

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 0016E65ABC02.  The following error occurred: 
The semaphore timeout period has expired. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.

Dunno if it has any bearing on the issue. On Saturday I performed multiple scans of my system, not finding anything, virtually. I keep it clean : ).

Unless I can figure it out, I think it might be time to reinstall Windows...

SOADA

[Broni]

It may be time to run memtest, and hard drive test...