Laptop crashing

[pampam]

Hello,

The last two months I see my laptop constantly crashing and I'm not sure at all what might be causing that.

I had it repaired relatively recently before it started crashing too.
That time it was a case of a burnt chip close to the motherboard, but it got replaced with a new one.

Suddenly though it started to enter in Windows really slow and sluggish every time I switched it on. Furthermore, when I have more than one tabs in Mozilla, or I'm chatting to more than one ppl on msn, or when I try to open a Word doc, or when I want to view photos form my folders, videos in utube, even listen to music either from my folders or a cd.....it just crashes!!It gets really slow, breaking the sounds, I literally cannot listen to anything....Sometimes, after a long time operating first, the sounds might get better (but I still won't be able to listen to a whole track; it's more a case of listening properly to the incoming msn messages and that's about it!)...

Whenever this happens the windows that I have open say 'not responding', and that's when I need to give it time let's say to come to terms with the idea of multitasking.
Truly, this has been going on solid for the last 2-3 months. I have no clue what to do. And at this point I'm wondering whether I should just give up on it and get a new one...but then, I came across this forum and I thought that maybe it's a last sanctuary before I have to change my lovely machine.....I live in London, and here, even just the check up of a pc costs alot, plus I've already done this twice so, since it won't get fixed permanently I cant see any reason why I should address to them people again.

I hope to find a solution to this through this forum.

Thanks in advance,

Pam.

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hi Pam

We need a little more information before we can assist you further. Any error messages when the system "crashes"? What are your system specs (Processor / Motherboard / Hard drive / Power supply / RAM / Video card / Operating System / anti virus that your running etc.)? Is the system overheating in any way (I ask because you mentioned that your chip needed replacing due to a burn-out)?

You might have contracted a virus in which case our 8-step tool would help you sort it out (but first things first - the info above is needed) ....

Spyder_1386

 

[pampam]

Hello there

Im quite happy to see such a quick response hehe..

So, no error messages when everything blows up unfortunately..
The machine is an Acer Ferrari 4000 with Windows XP Professional.

The system's specifications are:

Processor: AMD Turion 64 processor
ML-37 1MB L2 cache 2.0GHz, Chipset: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200P,
1 GB of DDR333 memory,
80GB ATA hard drive (it had 100GB drive but I had it replaced),

Graphics:
- ATI Mobility Radeon X700 with 128 MB of external DDR VRAM, supporting ATI Powerplay 5.0, Microsoft
- DirectX 9.0 and PCI Express
- DualView support; external display at up to 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution, 85 Hz
- MPEG-2 DVD hardware-assisted capability
- S-video/TV-out (NTSC/PAL) support
- DVI-D (true digital video interface) support.

Power supply:
- ACPI 1.0b power management standard supports Standby and Hibernation
power-saving modes
- 71 W Li-ion battery pack
- 2.5-hour rapid charge, 3.5-hour charge-in-use
- 3-pin 90 W AC adapter.

I use AVG antivirus, the free edition.

And last but not least, the laptop gets generally very hot after operating for a few hours. The chip had burnt due to some tea spilling on the keyboard....its was cleaned thoroughly and the faulty chip was replaced.

Did I forget anything? I hope this info will illuminate the situation..

Thanx

Pam

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hi Pam

Of the 80 Gig HDD, how much is being used at present? Do you do clean-ups consistently (Disk cleanup / disk defragment)? You currently have only 1Gig of Ram installed which could be causing your system to slow up a little but it's definitely not the cause of it coming to a stop. You might be infected with viruses .... please do go through the 8-step virus removal tool which can be found here .... https://www.techspot.com/community/...lware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/ .... and post your logs in the Virus and Malware section of the forum so that we can have them checked for you.

Please let us know how it goes.

Spyder_1386

 

[pampam]

hijackthis logs.....& general check up points.

Hello guys...I followed all the steps so far, and the hijackthis program gave the following log for my machine's condition..I wasnt sure what to include in my reply on this so I copied the following (if you need anything more don't hesitate to ask me, i will find it through the notepad)..I hope it won't be a big inconvenience for you and I certainly hope that something good will happen after all!!!

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 12:32:00 pµ, on 8/5/2009
Platform: Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v7.00 (7.00.6000.16827)
Boot mode: Normal

C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SUPERAntiSpyware.exe
C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [SUPERAntiSpyware] C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SUPERAntiSpyware.exe
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [ccleaner] "C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe" /AUTO

P.S.
After the whole virus/malware check that I did following ur recommendations,
my laptop works slightly better, I had many malware running free in my laptop...!!
I will post it on the malware/virus forum of urs, but I still notice the following:
- My laptop is still switching on very slowly.
- As soon as it enters the Windows the sound is crashing; it keeps doing that even after some time of operating.
-It will still crash and give me the hourglass when I try to do more than one things simultaneously, i.e. have two tabs open in Mozilla or chat in msn.
-At the beginning of its operation after the clean up it even wouldn't go in The Windows and rebooted itself twice!!In the end I took it to the 'last known configured working settings' as it said....and since I did that it keeps crashing.....
-Last but not least, it is overheating indeed so if you have any suggestions on that too that would be great..


Thanks in advance,

Pam

 

[soulslayer]

Apart from the malware/spyware making your system slow down, this sounds like a classic case of a Turion processor overheating. With the information provided thus far, I would think the processor fan isn't working. If that is the problem, it should be fairly cheap to replace. The other problem that sometimes cause the symptoms you describe is bad RAM. There is a program you can run called Memtest86 that can test your RAM. However, I would lean more to believing that it is a problem with the processor overheating.

 

[Route44]

I agree with what soulslayer said about running memtest. See this link: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic62524.html

Also, another gig of RAM would be a good idea especially if you are running Vista, though it is a good thing under XP as well.

However, I question if your system is truly clean. It still has sysmptoms of infection. Are you behind a router? Do you have an antimalware/spyware program as well? SuperAntiSpyware has a great free application.

What firewall are yoiu using?

Go online, search for NOD32 freee online scan. let them install their active X and scan. Get back to us with the results.

One other thing you may want to consider is that for the heat issue try a laptop pad for cooling.