Desperately seeking computer help.

[Valkysas]

Earlier today, my computer suddenly stopped, um. working. it starts up fine, but after logging in and loading the desktop, it stops responding the second I try to get it to do anything.

it runs fine in safe mode, which I'm in right now. I've run adaware, avast, and windows defender. nothing was found. I did a system restore to the 29th. but outside of safe mode, its still not doing anything.

using windows vista home premium, no service packs installed.

help?

[Jeroak Nelave]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

I've heard of this happening with bad ram, possible overheating CPU.

Will the mouse move? can you shut down or is it completely frozen and you cannot even move the mouse?

[Toaster]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

While we're at it:

My parent's PC acts really, really slow whenever it recovers from sleep/hibernation. It will be perfectly fine, but the second you let it hibernate--and it you were to make it run again only a minute after that everything comes to a screeching halt. The mouse pointer moves very slowly and everything suddenly becomes unresponsive. If you were to restart, however, everything works just fine.

I've tried the usual. Virus scanning, defragging, reg cleaning, limiting the number of programs at start-up. I'm gonna try cleaning up the dust from the tower but I doubt that'll fix it. I dunno what gives.

[Valkysas]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

Jeroak, when it locks up at the desktop, it goes to that spinny circle icon that tells you its trying to load, but it never goes away. soon after it appears, it stops animating. at which point it stops responding. no matter what I click, nothing reacts.

if the only thing I tell it to do is shut down, then it freezes with the start menu up. mouse still moves.

the only way I can get my computer off is to hold down the power button. safe mode shuts down fine, though. I can do absolutely anything in safe mode without issue.

I thought it was a heating issue, so I unplugged it, detached the battery, and stuck it in front of a fan for a while. about half an hour later when everything was cool to the touch, I connected it again, and it still locked up.

checking system resources now (in safe mode), it says out of my total memory, 2045MB, 1690 is cached, and only 59 is free. that... doesnt sound good. is that the problem? seems like it could/would be. what do I do about that? but it says only 31 percent of physical memory is used. I'm very confused.

[AbstractOrigin]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

Only thing I can think of is look through and see what's eating your
memory and kill those applications from starting when you boot/log in.

I don't know much about Vista (yet).
Hope this helps.

[Maijo]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

I had an extremely similar problem, Valk. I was updating my Vista software from Microsoft with the Windows Updates or whatever, and halfway through the computer shut down, and I'm guessing this messed up the OS some way.

I did a system restore to right before I began installing it and everything worked fine. But I dont know what to say if you already tried that... Maybe go earlier?

[Ωbright]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

Have you tried RamIdle?

That will tell you exactly what's eating your resources, and to what extent. You can also set it to free up ram whenever you get to a certain level of used ram.

Maybe might help maybe?

[JLaCroix]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

Earlier today, my computer suddenly stopped, um. working. it starts up fine, but after logging in and loading the desktop, it stops responding the second I try to get it to do anything.

it runs fine in safe mode, which I'm in right now. I've run adaware, avast, and windows defender. nothing was found. I did a system restore to the 29th. but outside of safe mode, its still not doing anything.

using windows vista home premium, no service packs installed.

help?

First of all, you have my phone number. You should've called me!

Second of all, your problem is due to corrupted hard drive tables. A simple checkdisk on C: should solve this, because it's not really a big deal. If by some stroke of luck that doesn't fix it, call me or post back here, there are other possibilities.

I've heard of this happening with bad ram, possible overheating CPU.

Will the mouse move? can you shut down or is it completely frozen and you cannot even move the mouse?

If the RAM was bad Valk would be getting "memory could not be written" or "memory could not be read" errors every once in a while. Even if not, the symptom would be sporadic behavior at first followed by a blue screen of death.

While we're at it:

My parent's PC acts really, really slow whenever it recovers from sleep/hibernation. It will be perfectly fine, but the second you let it hibernate--and it you were to make it run again only a minute after that everything comes to a screeching halt. The mouse pointer moves very slowly and everything suddenly becomes unresponsive. If you were to restart, however, everything works just fine.

I've tried the usual. Virus scanning, defragging, reg cleaning, limiting the number of programs at start-up. I'm gonna try cleaning up the dust from the tower but I doubt that'll fix it. I dunno what gives.

The problem has to do with your drivers. If not, delete and recreate the hibernation file on your drive if it's Vista. If that still doesn't work, give it a clean restart and then try the hibernation again. However, if it's not a driver problem I'd be amazed.

Jeroak, when it locks up at the desktop, it goes to that spinny circle icon that tells you its trying to load, but it never goes away. soon after it appears, it stops animating. at which point it stops responding. no matter what I click, nothing reacts.

if the only thing I tell it to do is shut down, then it freezes with the start menu up. mouse still moves.

the only way I can get my computer off is to hold down the power button. safe mode shuts down fine, though. I can do absolutely anything in safe mode without issue.

I thought it was a heating issue, so I unplugged it, detached the battery, and stuck it in front of a fan for a while. about half an hour later when everything was cool to the touch, I connected it again, and it still locked up.

checking system resources now (in safe mode), it says out of my total memory, 2045MB, 1690 is cached, and only 59 is free. that... doesnt sound good. is that the problem? seems like it could/would be. what do I do about that? but it says only 31 percent of physical memory is used. I'm very confused.

The problem is not due to overheating. If it was, it would randomly shut itself off or in some rare cases restart. It's the allocation tables on your drive, as I said. This is a typical Windows problem. It's trying to load the next thing in the list of services to start, but it can't find it because the tables around it are corrupted.

Only thing I can think of is look through and see what's eating your
memory and kill those applications from starting when you boot/log in.

I don't know much about Vista (yet).
Hope this helps.

That will make it run faster, surely.

I had an extremely similar problem, Valk. I was updating my Vista software from Microsoft with the Windows Updates or whatever, and halfway through the computer shut down, and I'm guessing this messed up the OS some way.

I did a system restore to right before I began installing it and everything worked fine. But I dont know what to say if you already tried that... Maybe go earlier?

Do not EVER use System Restore! Trust me on this. Disable System Restore before it makes your problems worse!!! I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs on why you shouldn't use it, but I won't bore you.

Have you tried RamIdle?

That will tell you exactly what's eating your resources, and to what extent. You can also set it to free up ram whenever you get to a certain level of used ram.

Maybe might help maybe?

Never heard of that one before.

[Valkysas]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

Second of all, your problem is due to corrupted hard drive tables. A simple checkdisk on C: should solve this, because it's not really a big deal. If by some stroke of luck that doesn't fix it, call me or post back here, there are other possibilities.

I didnt think to do checkdisk, since the first time I forced a shutdown and turned it back on it checked the hard drive. I thought that was the same thing. guess not.

also, all the stuff online I found pointed to startup programs (I got the "failed to load security options" notice on two of the crashes, so I used that to search for fixes). I disabled every non-windows startup program in the list, and it still crashes. so yeah, you're probably right. I'm unfortunately rather busy on my computer right now (and doing stuff fairly well with safe mode), so I'll run it tomorrow, as I remember that it can take quite a while.

thanks! and... I didnt call because I know how hard you work, and didnt wanna bother you.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

I didnt think to do checkdisk, since the first time I forced a shutdown and turned it back on it checked the hard drive. I thought that was the same thing. guess not.

also, all the stuff online I found pointed to startup programs (I got the "failed to load security options" notice on two of the crashes, so I used that to search for fixes). I disabled every non-windows startup program in the list, and it still crashes. so yeah, you're probably right. I'm unfortunately rather busy on my computer right now (and doing stuff fairly well with safe mode), so I'll run it tomorrow, as I remember that it can take quite a while.

thanks! and... I didnt call because I know how hard you work, and didnt wanna bother you.

There is a chance it could be something else. I would try a check disk from the recovery console. It's a different check disk than the one from within Windows. There are other things to try but this doesn't seem serious to me at all. Call me anytime except in the morning. I will be up until around 2am tonight.

It's not a "bother" for me to lend a helping hand to someone...

[Valkysas]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

recovery mode? yeah. about that. it says to push F11 to go into that on startup. it doesnt. it ignores input. cant even get into safe mode unless I crash in normal windows and then next time it turns on it goes into safe mode.

it's always done this. its nothing new.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

recovery mode? yeah. about that. it says to push F11 to go into that on startup. it doesnt. it ignores input. cant even get into safe mode unless I crash in normal windows and then next time it turns on it goes into safe mode.

it's always done this. its nothing new.

Now I'm beginning to think your Windows install is corrupted. The F11 for recovery mode is NOT what I'm referring to, that's something different. The recovery console is on the Windows CD and accessible only after booting from it. Your recovery partition is either missing or corrupted which is why F11 doesn't work. To get into safe mode properly you mash F8 repeatedly right after the POST screen disappears.

[Valkysas]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

I dont have a windows CD. HP doesnt give them with their computers.

F8 doesnt work. I've mashed it from the second I turn the system on and it just goes to the login screen as normal.

as for recovery partition, yeah, dont have that anymore since you had me do the backup data on that hard drive. you said I didnt need it.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

I dont have a windows CD. HP doesnt give them with their computers.

I have it. Give me your address.

F8 doesnt work. I've mashed it from the second I turn the system on and it just goes to the login screen as normal.

Either the Windows install is seriously corrupted, or it's only giving you a milisecond.

as for recovery partition, yeah, dont have that anymore since you had me do the backup data on that hard drive. you said I didnt need it.

That's absolutely right, you don't need it, because I can help you make your own recovery image, and the recovery image you make will be custom tailored to you. Not only that but manufacturer images are loaded down with bloat and crap.

I'm on vacation from my day job this week. We need to back up your stuff, get you a fresh Windows install, put all your favorite programs on there, and then create a brand new restore image. The disk check will probably work fine from the recovery console and fix everything but your Windows install won't last long at this rate.

[Valkysas]

Re: Desperately seeking computer help.

wow, thanks. I'll PM you my address. I'll mail it back when I'm done.

so basically, backup everything I want to transfer over. then when the disc comes in, reinstall vista, put my programs back on there, then make a new backup image the same way we did before, and then be happy. gotcha.

need to track down the drivers for my fingerprint reader and the other HP stuff (webcam, remote, touch panel media controls) too. those should all be on the hp website, though. I think. they should be.