[wingsdiva]

Greetings, geeks!
Running Vista on an HP Pentium dual core 2.5Gh, 4M RAM. No infections of any kind detected, but the computer freezes regularly and a hard boot is required.
Where can I find software to run on my system to detect hardware issues (if there is such a thing available to the general public)?

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Hi wingsdiva and let's see if we can find the culprit.
This will entail using several programs already included with your Vista so be patient and we will see what we can find.


Please follow the steps below to enter the Event Viewer program in Vista. This will give me more information into what is causing your issue. You can get to Event viewer two ways and I will post both for you.

Method One
• Go to
• Start
• In the Search box type in Event Viewer in the search box and press Enter
• From this point you can follow from step four from the below method as they will be the same.
Method Two
• Go to Start
• Right click on the Computer Icon and select Manage
• Navigate to the Event Viewer, You will be prompted to accept the action you are going to perform. Click continue
• On the left window pane click on Local and then expand the Windows entry. This will allow you to see every error for the past 24 hours as well as the last 7 days in the right window pane.
• Look for the ones that correspond to the times that your issue occurred.
• If any are found please double click and expand the error. This will open and give you more information on the error.
• Please include that in your next reply.

[rshaffer61]

Hi wingsdiva and let's see if we can find the culprit.
This will entail using several programs already included with your Vista so be patient and we will see what we can find.


Please follow the steps below to enter the Event Viewer program in Vista. This will give me more information into what is causing your issue. You can get to Event viewer two ways and I will post both for you.

Method One
• Go to
• Start
• In the Search box type in Event Viewer in the search box and press Enter
• From this point you can follow from step four from the below method as they will be the same.
Method Two
• Go to Start
• Right click on the Computer Icon and select Manage
• Navigate to the Event Viewer, You will be prompted to accept the action you are going to perform. Click continue
• On the left window pane click on Local and then expand the Windows entry. This will allow you to see every error for the past 24 hours as well as the last 7 days in the right window pane.
• Look for the ones that correspond to the times that your issue occurred.
• If any are found please double click and expand the error. This will open and give you more information on the error.
• Please include that in your next reply.

[wingsdiva]

Hi, rshaffer61.
Thanks for the instructions on finding the event log. I've never used Vista - this is a work computer. I'm an XP kinda gal.

This error displays on several occasions at appropriate times for system freeze:
Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

The main culprits seem to be Adobe Acrobat and Quickbooks. There are no appropriate crash times for QB, but here is the general error message for Adobe:

The program Acrobat.exe version 9.3.0.148 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel. Process ID: 634 Start Time: 01cac93b4006aeea Termination Time: 60000

[rshaffer61]

OK then lets take a look another way to see what it finds.

Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter ...It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot...click Y
If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually. On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.
When completed it will boot the system back into windows.

Let me know if this fixes the problem

[wingsdiva]

Hi, rshaffer61.
I haven't been able to address this yet, but I wanted to be sure and thank you for your response. I'll get to this this weekend and let you know how it goes.
Thanks again!
WD

[DaffyKantReed]

Download, unzip, and burn the ISO file to a CD or DVD. Set the BIOS to boot from the optical device and test your RAM.

http://www.memtest.o...6 -4.00.iso.zip

Free burning app for Windows
http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download

Also, many Linux CDs have Memtest as a boot option.

[wingsdiva]

I figured out the problem. It was the software for my backup drive that was creating all my issues. Once I uninstalled it, the computer has been working fine. Thanks for all the help and great info for future reference.

[rshaffer61]

Thank you for letting us know what the resolution was. I appreciate the chance to help and for your patience.
Enjoy the other forums and the wealth of knowledge available here.