Computer Geeks Please Help

For the last couple of days I have noticed that my computer is getting a little "jumpy". It seems unstable? Occasionally the monitor will kick off and after a few seconds come back on.

Tonight I turned it on and it looked like it was going to give me the old you did not shut down properly screen then it stopped loading windows altogether. I had to hold in the power key to get it to go off so I could restart.

When I restarted it gave me another error screen and I had to tell it to load windows.

I have a Dell (circa2005) and I am running Windows XP Pro. I do not visit Porn Sites! Heck I don't even get pop ups and I have no pop up protection.

Any advice or thoughts on what is going on or what I should do. (Oh and your MAC guys....SAVE IT!)

 

Excluding a hardware problem ... unfortunately, even most well-maintained windoze setups witll eventually corrupt themselves and start to go egg-shaped even if you're not using MSIE and Outlook and aren't plagued by a ton of viri and trojans. It's just a poorly designed/engineered OS.

In general, the best thing you can do is back up your data, format the drive, and clean-install windows. While it is time consuming, it is generally much faster than spending hours trying to figure out what is wrong with your current installation and trying to fix it (which isn't even possible in many cases).

My laptop with XP on it is hitting the 1.5 year mark and the degredation in performance is very noticable at this point - and that's even Firefox/Thunderbid and never having a single virus, worm or trojan on it.

I don't use it for much except two applications that are windoze only, but sooner or later it's going to have to get the refresh treatment if I want to keep using it.

- Roach

 

Go to control panel>administrative tools> event viewer.

Check your application and system logs. Is there a particular program or process that is showing errors?

Check task manager during periods of idle use (right click your task bar and click TASK MANAGER). Now click the processes tab. Note the CPU column. It will show double digits. Any processes NOT showing up as the numbers 00?

 

Roach, unfortunately, your answer is one given only by those who are ignorant of how to use and maintain a computer properly. Windows XP does have some flaws, just as 2k and 98 and 95 and 3.11 did... Its inherent to any complicated piece of software, whether it be Windows, Mac, etc...


I've salvaged a few PC's in my time that everyone had given up hope on... so if Guerilla really wants to get it going again, we can give it a shot.

Hes gonna have to put in a little time and effort though.

First off, i cant do sheeat w/o the error messages. The even viewer isnt a bad place to start, but lets simply start with the error messages that pop up on the screen (if any?) when the thing crashes.

Next up, reboot the thing and press the F8 key while its still in the "black and white" screens so that you get the boot menu. Select SAFE MODE WITH NETWORKING and press enter.

Once there, make sure any antivirus is TURNED OFF (i.e. Norton etc) and browse to www.trendmicro.com and follow the screens to run their ONLINE VIRIUS SCAN. Let it run completely and report back which viri it found and removed, and if it couldnt remove any, and about how many total there were.

 

Yeah ... that's me ... don't know a thing about computers. Barely know how to turn the things on. All those years as a Senior Admin and Software Engineer at a fortune 500 company with one of the largest private datacenters ... I was faking it Or ...

Meanwhile, as I mentioned in my post, I'd have already had my system backed up, cleanly re-installed, and up and running while you're on that time and effort part.

Think Smarter. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, no matter if you have mad windoze skillz..

Yes, you can repair a XP installation that's gone to shit (XP is by far the shiniest turd MS has ever produced). However, on a home machine there's little reason to do so when simply wiping the thing is faster, easier, and guaranteed to solve the problem.

I'd rather spend less time and effort to achieve the same or better result, especially on an install that's been building cruft for anything past about a year. If it were an XP/2xxx server and actually doing something important? Sure ... that's a case where you need to spend the time because you can't go the easy route.

Of course, I'm typing this on a Sun UltraSparc workstation that's been running for years without a problem ... so what do I know?

- Roach

 

I Think I'll go with Roach on this one. Any windows platform past the 1 year mark is running on borrowed time. Reinstall windows and be done with it. Consider it an annual PM procedure and you will avoid many of your problems.

 

windows XP for over 2 years now, a torn of porn surfing, and not the first problem.......



weird.

 

Wow. I thought the BBS had explored the limits of how wrong one person could be . . . I don't know who you are, Nanotech9, but Brian has probably forgotten more about computers and technology than most of us will ever know.

Also, I wouldn't suggest searching your system for "viri", as no such thing exists. You might concern yourself with viruses, but we've no indication that they are the source of your problem. If you are bent on going the diagnose-and-fix route, start looking at the event viewer and see if anything jumps out at you.

And if anyone wants to follow Brad's advice about computers, electronics, etc. - I've got a pacemaker I'd like you to try . . .





FWIW, my advice follows Roach's and the guy with all the numbers in his name. Sure - you can spend hours diagnosing and repairing Windows, but generally speaking it's faster just to reload it. Unlike motorcycles, with Windows it's easier/more efficient just to replace the entire engine, rather than find out what's making the funny noises and fixing it. (And this comes from another guy who has spent years supporting Windows in large corporate environments.)

 

just because roach and LAR are the only people who can stand you doesn't mean you know a fucking thing.


it IS possible that someone actually knows more than roach about many things in life.

personally, i'd take frank angel's advice over anyone else's advice about computers here..... and i'd like to note that he's been EERILY <sp> silent on this thread.

 

See I go out of my way to stay away from potential problems. An ounce of prevention theory. No porn, No downloading patches and other software simply use the computer at its basic level.

Here is the error message I get.

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.


The problem seems to be caused by file nv4_disp

Device Driver is stuck in aninfinite loop

Check hardware vendor for updates?


Then once I actually get windows to start I get this error signature:
szAppName: drivers.display
szAppVer: 10de0322a101b910de
szmodname:nv4_disp.dll
szmodver: 6.14.10.4502
Offset: f87a06ea

Now is there anything quick I can do?

If not how do I prepare to do the wipe thing?

I don't have a back up thing?

 

I have thousands of events and hundreds of errors but none of them seem to coinside with the issues.

Task manager processes not showing 00:
task manager 01
explorer 01
idle process manager 98/99/98/99

 

all that porn you could'a seen...

 

if I am gonna have to wipe it I am gonna blow up thehun.com before I do!

 

ahahahahahaha!

 

Looks like you have a bad video card device driver. Check the make and model of the video card. See Device manager for details.

Check Dell support page for you make and model of your computer and download the latest driver for the video card.

Install and reboot.

I just googled your error and seems to be a typical problem with NVIDIA 440 series drivers.

You should be fixed in 15 minutes. Report any problems.

 

Sean, Roach - Sorry to hear about all your problems. As I am sure you already know. I have an environment with hundreds, and at times, thousands of windows and Linux servers, and only have to reload servers of my problem customers regularly rather they are on Windows or Linux. I have hundreds of servers that I have never had to reload, and they have been up for years.

Oh and Roach, although I am sure this does not refer to you, but being a sysadmin for years does not neccessarily equate to knowledge

 

No good.

 

Time for that digital enema then?

 

If it is a Video Card issue and not a RAM stick gone bad. Which you can test by just booting with one stick at a time.

Get the drivers straight from nvidia not Dell

You need to first completely uninstall your nividia drivers.

2 resources on this are:


1) http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Video-Tweak/Detonator-Destroyer.shtml

Decent app for removing detonator drivers, at least the last time I used it.

2) http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_4.html

Basically once you remove any trace of the drivers then install the latest downloaded ones. This also may require f8 and boot into VGA mode.

Again I have seen dll's get corrupted because of a flakey RAM module and never ending reboots all because of one misbehaving stick of ram

-CV