Hello, can anyone please help? I have a pentium 2 400mhz pc, 192mb pc100 dimm ram, 4 gb hd, os-windows 2000 pro. I was using windows 98 se for some time with no real freeze or crashing problems, but now I have installed windows 2000 the pc boots up fine and will work fine for a while until it completely randomley freezes. This will happen when I click on a system tray icon, nothing happens and then freezing begins. I try to use task manager to end the offending programs but it too will then freeze and the screen will go strange. Sometimes things will return to normal if I leave the pc for 10 mins or so. Also IE sometimes becomes non responsive, web pages won't load and my internet connection stops, even though I have high speed cable broadband which is reliable, it's definitely the pc. Programs just keep freezing and NOTHING responds so I am forced to unplug the dam thing and switch it back on; then it just works like nothing had ever happened, until the next time. I have run disk defrag, disk check, I have 50% free space on my hard drive. I have run MS memory checker, all no problems detected. I run Adware 6, so no spyware. I have anti virus software that I run everyday, so no virus infection. I have a software firewall installed. I even run Registry Mechanic, it finds no problems apart from deleted windows media player registry values and stuff. Windows 2000 tells me all my devices are working properly and there are no conflicts. I have run an online test @ PcPitstop, again no problems detected. I have no doggy software on my pc and there are no strange or unneccesary processes running. I have re-installed windows 2000 pro, this did not resolve the problem. Everything should be hunky dorey, but it's not. The dam thing keeps freezing for no apparant reason! Can anyone please give me any advice to help me solve this problem?

Go to C/windows and look for a folder called Faultlog.txt. Open it and it should display all the faults that have occurred. Post a few so we can see if theres anything in particular thats causing it.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I do not have c/windows faultlog.text, or I can't find it. I have used search to look for it and browsed all my files. I don't seem to have a c/windows folder. I have winnt though, anyway I don't have a faultlog.text file.

Yes, it was the C:\Winnt folder that Tassie Devil was referring to. Incidentally, though, I don't have a Faultlog.txt file either.

Sounds like your PC is generally in good shape, although perhaps a little under-specced for running Windows 2000 these days.

I would suggest that you reboot and get into Windows. Press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Delete] and click Task Manager. On the Performance tab, it will give you a reading for the amount of processor usage (which should only be a few percent when the system is sitting idle) and another counter for the amount of memory usage (this should be 192Mb, i.e. 196608Kb, or less). Minimise Task Manager.

When your PC starts freezing or looks like it's about to (if you can tell when it's going to happen), then try and bring up the Task Manager window again from the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Has the processor usage shot up? What has happened to the memory usage? You might need to resize your screens so that you have the Task Manager running at the side whilst you continue working - that way, you'll be able to keep an eye on what's going on.

Give us some feedback about your results and we'll try and diagnose it further

I run an old Dell latitude with far lower specs than your machine, with no problems, so I suspect that there may well be some nefarious program running in the background and it is taking all the CPU time, especially has this may have only just started happening

I would suggest that you follow the instructions here and post a hijack this log in the Security Section of the forum

Thanks very much for trying to help. I did check on the proccessor and memory usage, it was fine normally. However I think I have found out what was causing the problem. On reflection I realised that the problems were arising when I was running kazza or bittorrent. I would be downloading and then the download would suddenly stop dead and the program wouldn't respond. It seemed to completely disable and my internet connection (cable broadband), so even web pages on internet explorer would not load. Then came the usual total freezing of my pc. After restarting and staring another download with bittorrent, the same thing would happen again about 30 mins later. I have become aware now that many other people have had this exact same problem when using bittorrent. Aparently it has something to do with the language it's written in which can cause prolems on windows based systems. I tried using other bt clients and still experieneced the same problem. I am now using a bt client called bitcoment and it seems to have solved the problem. No internet connection freezing, no crashing, everything now seems hunky dorey. Cool and the gang.

It's not only that that causes the problems both Kazaa and bit torrent install spyware on your system

I REALLY do suggest that you post a hijack this log in security as the spyware is NOT uninstalled when you uninstall Kazaa and bit torrent

Thanks for your reply mate. I am 99% sure that I don't have any spyware or malware on my pc. I used kazaa lite, which contains no spyware and the bt programs are so small it seems doubtful to me that they contain anything else except the bt client. Anyway I run adaware 6 and spybot s+d regularly with up to date reference files. They report a spyware free system. I have also posted a results log of hijack this on another forum and was told it looked clean. Thanks anyway and I will post a log in the security forum just to make doubley sure, but everything is just grand with my pc now so let's rock

Okay, my pc is broke again! The same freezing problem is happening with bitcomet. All downloads stop and the whole system crashes after about 30mins. Here are the results of hijack this..................any advice would be very much appreciated.

Logfile of HijackThis v1.98.0
Scan saved at 01:08:35, on 21/07/2004
Platform: Windows 2000 SP4 (WinNT 5.00.2195)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106)

Running processes:
C:\WINNT\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\services.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG6\avgserv.exe
C:\WINNT\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\regsvc.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\MSTask.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\ZoneLabs\vsmon.exe
C:\WINNT\System32\WBEM\WinMgmt.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINNT\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zlclient.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG6\avgcc32.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft IntelliType Pro\type32.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft IntelliPoint\point32.exe
C:\Program Files\GTDesktop\Plugins\GTRipple.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\KAZAAL~1\KazaaLite.kpp
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.exe
C:\WUTemp\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://google.com/
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Local Page =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Local Page =
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {53707962-6F74-2D53-2644-206D7942484F} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Helper - {AA58ED58-01DD-4d91-8333-CF10577473F7} - c:\program files\google\googletoolbar1.dll
O3 - Toolbar: @msdxmLC.dll,-1@1033,&Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINNT\System32\msdxm.ocx
O3 - Toolbar: &Google - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} - c:\program files\google\googletoolbar1.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Synchronization Manager] mobsync.exe /logon
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Zone Labs Client] "C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zlclient.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG_CC] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG6\avgcc32.exe /STARTUP
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [type32] "C:\Program Files\Microsoft IntelliType Pro\type32.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [IntelliPoint] "C:\Program Files\Microsoft IntelliPoint\point32.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [GTRipple] C:\Program Files\GTDesktop\Plugins\GTRipple.exe
O8 - Extra context menu item: &Google Search - res://C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbar1.dll/cmsearch.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Backward Links - res://C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbar1.dll/cmbacklinks.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Cached Snapshot of Page - res://C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbar1.dll/cmcache.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Similar Pages - res://C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbar1.dll/cmsimilar.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Translate into English - res://C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbar1.dll/cmtrans.html
O16 - DPF: {0E5F0222-96B9-11D3-8997-00104BD12D94} (PCPitstop Utility) - http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/PCPitStop.CAB

Go to Start | Run
Type in winmgmt /clearadap
Click Ok

Two questions for you

Have you installed any new RAM?

Do the crashes happen when Kazaalite is running?