Windows stability problems

[themusgrat]

First of all, this is all because of overclocking. So now I'm back to stock, and Windows is doing many bad things. I have run error checking many times, but that is not fixing anything. So what should I do, like is there a way to repair windows without wiping everything? Or can I repair Windows and still keep my apps. ty for any help.

EDIT: Fixed, ty for the help.

 

[Atheus]

You can do a 'repair install' - just boot your windows CD and choose that option. Not sure how much you will have to reinstall if you do this.

Have you actually loaded the BIOS defaults, or did you just clock back down manually? I would really make sure it's at default everything before assuming your OS is corrupted.

And next time do your overclocking _before_ installing all your apps. This way there's not too much damage to be done. Run all the stability tests (Prime95, SuperPI, Memtest) before completing the install.

 

[benlewis]

I do the following. I run from CD a Linux version such a Knopix. If all runs fine, I suspect Windows. Then I do some level of a reload.

But ofton the Linux will crap out in start up, and that then tells me it is hardware, suspect memory first!

 

[themusgrat]

ya, i just clocked down, though i thought that i redid all the memory stuff right, but ill do that next. but i have run memtest a couple of times, no problems, and im like 4 hours into prime95, no errors so far. and does anyone else know what repair makes you install? because that would be the easiest thing. btw, one problem is that when I open my computer, it does the little flashlight searching thing for maybe a minute and a half, but after that, it is properly snappy. but every time i come back to the main my computer screen, it has to search forever again. and while it is, it says something like "memory could not be read at ****...." but it isnt the memory i dont think, cuz it only does that when im opening my computer, and memtest says that the RAM is fine. so any insight on that would also be appreciated. ty for the help.

 

[themusgrat]

Well, I have reset to BIOS defaults, run error checking, and installed new video and chipset drivers, no good. It still takes forever to get my computer to load. So should I reinstall, and if I do that, will it keep my apps and settings intact?

EDIT: I am 99% sure that it is not hardware related now. So now I just need to know whether or not repair will mess all of my apps up or not.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Repair install resets all Windows configurations, including drivers and integrated applications, to their original, fresh install state. You have to download/install all the updates again, and install drivers again. All of your 3rd party or other Microsoft applications will keep all their own settings and any updates they've had, and all of the user files and accounts will remain intact (even if they're not stored in your My Documents folder; even your bookmarks/Favorites and history will be intact, although I think it does change your homepage back to the default MSN stuff). No data files get overwritten, just OS files.

There might be a rare application out there that freaks out because it had installed its own slightly different version of a file which the Repair wipes out, but that shouldn't happen often since system files are protected by Windows so applications can't overwrite them, and different versions ought to still work usually.

Regardless of the relative safety and convenience of a Repair install, you should still have a backup.

One thing you might do is use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Use it to save your settings to a new folder somewhere (tell the wizard this is your "old" computer). Select only to backup the settings, not files and folders. After the repair install, you can use the Wizard to import all the settings (select that it's the "new" computer) and the large proportion of your Windows setup will be back to the way it was before.

 

[themusgrat]

ty for that, but i just got finished doing the repair, and it did not help at all. The same problems came up again, but so that you know, all of them have something to do with "svchost," whatever that is. Maybe that helps. Uh, so i guess that any more help would be much appreciated.

 

[Lord Evermore]

svchost.exe is the host process that Windows uses to run load the files needed for the system Services. You will normally see several instances of svchost.exe running in Task Manager. There are some bugs which can result in it using 100% of your CPU time which can cause the system to feel laggy, but I don't know offhand exactly how to go about fixing it other than making sure all Windows updates are installed as well as most recent drivers.

Have you tried testing it out using only one memory module at a time? The fact that you get an error of "the memory could not be read at X" could indicate either a buggy driver or application, or bad memory, even if memtest says it's fine. It could even be a bad hard drive cache or CPU; depending on what you did to overclock, you may have damaged something.

 

[themusgrat]

Well, so what should I do? I tried the RAMs separately, and in different slots, same thing. The thing says "svchost - application error" Does that actually mean that it is from an app that i installed, or from some random windows service?

 

[themusgrat]

Bump for the svchost.exe problems... I really don't think that it is hardware related, so how should I fix it? And shouldn't repair have fixed it if it was a OS problem? So if it is an app problem, what do I do?

 

[Slikkster]

From my research, it appears that quite often the svchost-application error is a result of malware. Certain worms, etc., are capable of causing this. Might want to do a double/triple check on your system for that kind of thing. At least worth ruling it out.

 

[themusgrat]

true... i do definitely have crap, cuz spybot has like 25 things that pop up every time, and never are fixed. so what should i use to get rid of it? adaware doesn't pick it up, and symantec doesnt either...

EDIT: Well, I just ran spybot and adaware again, and spybot showed 7 different problems, with many entries each, and adaware showed the usual tracking cookie... Since these are never fixed, and it is likely that these are not the only problems, what should I do? I have been thinking about reformatting and reinstalling and all that, but that is a lot of work. Much better to have some way to get rid of this crap without reformatting of course. Any help? Oh, and I never would have guessed that it would be malware, so ty soo much. That is probably it, and if not...... I think that reformatting is sounding kind of good about now.

So basically, it is probably a spyware/malware issue now.

 

[Slikkster]

I wouldn't count on the anti-spyware programs to get rid of a worm. That's more of an anti-virus program deal.

 

[themusgrat]

Oh... Shows how much I know about this stuff, but if my antivirus stuff sin't even picking it up, what can I do? I'll run a full scan again, see what it does.

 

[Slikkster]

Try an online scanner, too. It will take awhile, but worth it:

http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

 

[corkyg]

or here . . .

host

 

[themusgrat]

Well, I am using IE 7 beta, I think that the online scanner isn't working right no, but the second link's registry scanner found like 174 invalid keys... Would that do the trick? And if so, is that one of the best scanners, or are there better ones? Preferrably free, but then again, i'll pay money for something that doesn't screw my PC up any more. So tell me what reg fixer to use, and I'm about to try the scanner again; may have to uninstall the beta version.

EDIT: Wow... Kind of funny that IE Tab for Firefox works better than IE7... So it's scanning now.

So could registry errors cause this kind of screwupage? I thought that bad registry keys would either cause the PC to completely not turn on, or they would merely be unecessary.

EDIT 2: Well, I got a pretty good and kind of free reg cleaner, WinASO Registry Optimizer, it only repairs 10 keys per pass, so it kind of took a long time, but hey, whatever. The virus scanner is almost done, I can't wait to reboot and see if that fixed the problem.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: themusgrat
I thought that bad registry keys would either cause the PC to completely not turn on, or they would merely be unecessary.

Not so.

EDIT 2: Well, I got a pretty good and kind of free reg cleaner, WinASO Registry Optimizer, it only repairs 10 keys per pass, so it kind of took a long time, but hey, whatever. The virus scanner is almost done, I can't wait to reboot and see if that fixed the problem.

Regardless of if the the machine now works, you want to clean up your machine ASAP before something worse happens. Run every virus scan you can find, online ones, and free ones like AVG and antivir. Then run spyware scanners, including microsoft antispyware, spybot, and adaware. Then run crap cleaner, it will fix registry keys under the 'scan for problems' tab as well as it's primary function of cleaning up caches and stuff. Then defrag.

 

[themusgrat]

Ya, that's what I figured. I haven't had this PC for a couple of months now, so I don't have a clue as to how all this crap got on here. I will do that though, there is probably a thread in the apps forum about free online scanners, i'll check it out. oh, and of course, thanks a billion for all the help. I hope that this fixes it.

 

[Slikkster]

http://www.johannrain-softwareentwicklung.de/e_online_antivirus_scan.htm

 

[themusgrat]

Crappit, that didn't work. I repaired all of the registry, and did the kapersky thing, and it didn't find anything. I'm trying avg and antivir now, and i'll do some online ones through the night. And ty for that last linky, that has to be pretty much all of the online scanners.

 

[Slikkster]

You can try this, too.

Put your XP CD in the CDROM drive. Exit out of its spash screen when it pops up. You know, the blue box that comes up after you put the CD in. Just exit out of that. Leave the CD in the drive. Now,

Click Start Button

Click Run

In the Run box, type (without the quotation marks) "sfc /scannow" and click Ok.

Note: There is a space between "sfc" and "/scannow".


You will get a small diagonal box on your screen. It's the "System File Checker", and it will make sure all of your system files are the correct and current ones. Don't worry about it copying older files from the CD. The SFC takes into account any service packs and hotfixes you have installed, and won't copy older files on top of them.

It will take a few minutes to go through the checking process. Once you see the box disappear from your desktop, it's done. It won't tell you what it found or what it replaced.

Reboot after that. Check your system.

Note: If it keeps asking you to put your XP cd in the drive, it means that the CD drive you have the disk in is not the drive that was used to install XP. Just keep clicking Retry each time that message comes up. Annoying, but that's what you will have to do each time that message comes up, IF it comes up.

 

[btcomm1]

If you haven't already, you should probrably do a repair install of windows then immediatly do all critical windows updates.

 

[themusgrat]

Well, none of that worked. I tried like 10 antivirus programs, and none of them found anything wrong. One of them found some files that it couldn't open, and called them "suspects", and they even had svchost in the name, but since none of the other 9 or so did, I don't think that they were really problems. I also repaired and installed the latest fixes, but nothing changed. So unless someone has something else to try, I will probably just reformat and reinstall I think. If it is still malware and worms, then this should fix it, and if it is hardware, I will know really soon for sure. Thanks for all the help.

 

[dball3]

well i don't think i've seen u check and see what services and start up programs u have running. You should check and see what's starting up something there might be causing your lag. And if you have a spare hard drive around i'd throw it in and install xp on it just to see if it runs normal from another hard drive. you can check the start up programs , and services list by typing msconfig at the run dialog.