PC rebooting problem, suggestions?

[SWing'R]

My pc has started doing weird things lately and I need some advice

on where to look for the culprit or how to fix it.

I've taken some steps already and things have gotten better but its still

doing strange things.

The pc is a PowerSpec 6342 from microcenter, can't remember when I got

it, its been awhile. Its running Windows XPHome Edition Service Pack3.

Lets start at the beginning....

- Pc was running Windows Live OneCare as its all in one security program... Firewall/Antivirus/Antispyware/Backup.

I started to have issues with OneCare crashing randomly, also in the morning when waking up the pc

I'd find it all jammed up and almost unusable as something had slowed it down to a crawl.

I changed my "power settings" so that windows did not shut down any of the harddrive activities overnight suspecting

this was an issue since OneCare did its scanning and archiveing late at night. After changing the settings to "always on"

except for the monitor things got better, the slowing down in the mornings stopped but then I started experiencing random

windows errors and random reboots.

Still suspecting Windows OneCare, I removed it and purchased McAfee's Total Protection program.

After installing it and running a full scan of my system it found some things it quarantined and removed.

Feeling good I thought maybe the problems would stop. Nope. Still getting random Windows errors and reboots.

So thats where I am. Any thoughts? Any suggestions on a registry cleaner/fixer program?? I'm leary of any you can download.

How about a log? Is there somewhere I can check to see whats been triggering the reboots?

[RVTPilot]

This sounds like it could be a couple things. Malware could be one. Try going to www.malwarebytes.org and download the free version. You may have to start up in safe mode with networking as well. If you want to check your system logs, right-click on the My Computer icon and click manage. From there, you can see logs under event viewer.

Also, do you have system restore set up on your PC? Maybe you can restore back to before your OneCare install. Sometimes, the uninstall doesn't remove all of the registry changes the install makes.

[chevysoldier]

"Leave me alone about my rebooting problems!!!"

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[jblosser]

MBAM is a good starting point to get rid of the bad things.

HijackThis is for more experienced users - choose the "do a system scan and save a backup" or something like that option.

As far as seeing what's going on, the Windows Event Viewer (Start, Run "eventvwr", [enter]) will, maybe, show you what process is dying. That's assuming it's a Windows thing and not virus/malware/adware/etc.

IF you see something in HijackThis that you're unsure whether it should be running or not, Google it. Things that look bad could be some oddball something your network card needs, while innocuous looking entries might be the bad guys.

You could send your HijackThis log to me if you want, but I'm heading to the OSU hockey game around 6:30 tonight, so either before then or after 10:30...

Edited December 5, 2009 by jblosser

[jblosser]

I believe MS abandoned OneCare at the end of June 2009...

As far as registry cleaners, I've never found one that did anything useful. No harm, just a waste of time.

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a good tool for getting rid of the 'crap' on your machine.

Backup your important stuff, reinstall. An hour or so worth of work, or you could spend hours chasing whatever's wrong and maybe not fixing it. Just my $0.02 worth.

[that dude]

buy a mac

[jblosser]

buy a mac

Use Linux. Mac=BSD with an ugly purple theme...

[justin0469]

Personally, I like Spybot - Search and Destroy and Crap Cleaner

they work good

[ReconRat]

I go with the Malwarebytes also. I will add that I rename the mbsetup exe to anything else (mb.exe is typically what I use.), since it's known to be attacked when executed. That's a hint that it actually does the job of removing the crap. They single it out for attack.

I also use SuperAntiSpyware (also free). Between these two, will clean most all stuff.

If you want to clean registry and temp files first, I use CCleaner (CrapCleaner). Also free, and works wonders. Use it first. Make several passes to get it all. Clean your apps also with the other option. Use the registry backup option on the first pass.

Scan in safe mode, and/or regular, as many times and in any order as necessary to remove the bad stuff. How I scan is based on experience with dealing with viruses every day. Sometimes a little help is needed with other software to remove stuff, but that's best left to higher skill levels.

With your computer, I'd probably download and install the 3 softwares, update the two scanners while installing, run the cleaner, reboot to safe mode and scan with malwarebytes in quick mode, then reboot into safe mode again and scan with superantispyware in full mode. Reboot normal, and run both scans again. It's going to take a while. Disconnect all external drives first. Reboot is your friend, reboot after each scan.

If it blocks download sites, etc, or fights with you about it... then get the software from another computer and copy it onto the computer, or use safe mode with networking. Install and update. Usually after the first safe mode scan with the malwarebytes it will start to settle down and let you work on removing viruses/trojans.

I wouldn't trust putting credit card numbers into that computer anymore.

edit: what Justin said... Spybot can pick up a few more that were missed by the other two scanners. I used to use it all the time as a third scanner, and sometimes scanning with it first, but lately not so much.

Edited December 5, 2009 by ReconRat

[jblosser]

It's agreed, S'Wing'R: MBAM, Crap Cleaner, and Spybot! If it ain't fixed after the 3 of those, it's rebuild time (with Linux, of course... )

...Oh, and too late now, but next time use AVG Free anti-virus.

[justin0469]

for AV, I used free version of avast

[SWing'R]

I believe MS abandoned OneCare at the end of June 2009...Backup your important stuff, reinstall. An hour or so worth of work, or you could spend hours chasing whatever's wrong and maybe not fixing it. Just my $0.02 worth.

I still have OneCare running on the wife's pc, the subscription is up in May 2010, after that I'll remove it and install the McAfee on hers too since it has a license for 3 pc's. As far as backingup and reinstalling, yeah, been that route before, backup is easy since I have most everything already backed up on an external hd, its the reinstalling of all my software and getting my pc back to the way I like it that takes me DAYS not hours. Not sure I want to commit that kind of time right now.

It's agreed, S'Wing'R: MBAM, Crap Cleaner, and Spybot! If it ain't fixed after the 3 of those, it's rebuild time (with Linux, of course... )...Oh, and too late now, but next time use AVG Free anti-virus.

Thanks, I'll check these suggestions out. As for a "free" anti-virus, that kinda scares me, the old "you get what you pay for"

is not something I want to take chances with on my AV.

[RVTPilot]

+1 for AVG. Running it on 3 household machines and most of my side jobs. Trend Micro is good stuff too. And the free ones don't usually have all those 'extras' that things like Norton suites have that sucks up system resources and bogs apps down.

[kawi kid]

[JonS]

Get a can of compress air and clean out the PC.

[SWing'R]

Get a can of compress air and clean out the PC.

Its not a overheating pc from dust buildup, its definelty seems to be windows or software related. I think I've got registry issues.

Ran the malware program, it turned up nothing, ran the ccleaner, like that program, I like that fact that you can easily manage

your startup files from that, it also found lots of errors with my registery, I haven't ran the fix yet, gonna see what Spybot S&D finds first, running that now.

Oh, and thumbs up on the "eventvwr" windows log, lots of info there. Thanks.

[that dude]

mac

[ReconRat]

I've had services whacked by viruses. It's hard to track down what went wrong and fix it up. Most recently I found one that had the proxy server turned on. The computer could surf HTTPS but not HTTP websites. (IE only, the FireFox wasn't attacked.) Easy fix, but moderately infected. Had to clean it out.

Most reboot/crashes I've seen are by-products of viral attacks. Although updates from MicroSoft can cause problems also. And there was one last week that killed a few computers. (Boots to black screen, looks like a dead hard drive but it's only a dead op sys.) MicroSoft swears they didn't do it. But some combination of factors during the update caused it.

[SWing'R]

Both the Spybot S&D and Malware programs turned up nothing

(I didn't expect to have any mal/spyware anyway).

I used the crapcleaner to fix over 330 registry errors. Hopefully that will

do it! Hasn't rebooted since , we'll wait and see.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

[ReconRat]

btw, first bank of RAM can cause crash on boot. Second bank of RAM can cause crash later while running. You might scan your RAM memory. (Or at least reseat the memory modules. Download and make a floppy:

Windows Memory Diagnostic

[jporter12]

To test RAM, I use Memtest86+ (or something like that, I'm too lazy to look it up and link it.)

For Antivirus, I've been using NOD32 for a couple years, and it has been AWESOME! Daily updates, email protection, MS office protection, daily updates. Pretty much JUST what you need, but not more than you need. It doesn't hog up a bunch of resources that slows the computer down (like Norton does?) It's been one of the highest rated with low overhead for a while now. NO AV program will catch it all, you really need to run one all the time, and regularly run a manual scan with others, even the free ones are great for this!

Good luck!

[jporter12]

btw, first bank of RAM can cause crash on boot. Second bank of RAM can cause crash later while running. You might scan your RAM memory. (Or at least reseat the memory modules. Download and make a floppy:

Windows Memory Diagnostic

Who you callin floppy?

What is a floppy disk? I haven't used on in a while. Last time I needed one was to install a RAID driver with Windows Home Server (Server 2k3 based) and I had to take it from another box to do that!

[SWing'R]

Hasn't rebooted since ' date=' we'll wait and see.[/quote']

Apparently I still have a issue. Came back in the room a few minutes ago and found the pc rebooted itself

sometime between my post at 11:26 and 11:48 (log time that shows security center restarted).

The event log does not show any application error or warning during that time frame though, so not sure.

I'll try the memory test tomorrow.

[SWing'R]

...For Antivirus, I've been using NOD32 for a couple years, and it has been AWESOME! Daily updates, email protection, MS office protection, daily updates. Pretty much JUST what you need, but not more than you need. It doesn't hog up a bunch of resources that slows the computer down (like Norton does?)...

I'm running that on our Netbook. It was suggested by the salesman at Microcenter because of the low resource usuage (netbooks don't have a lot).

[SJC1000rr]

+1 for memory testing. When I first read all this, it was the first thing that came to my mind. Having went through this on too many other pcs.