First it happened with starcraft. Then with an old version of meridian59, an old ass mmorpg. Then it started happening durring NAV scans, and now spybot scans as well. The only way around it I have found is to do a boot scan with avast, then boot into safemode and run spybot which will not crash until the comp has been in normal mode for awhile. Then I can load up normally without crashs but they come back after a short ammount of time. Now this is affecting my frickin' CD burning so its major. I have analyzed the system with hijackthis as well but didn't turn up anything, and done some registry cleaning and defragmenting and error checking and whatnot. Any ideas? I figure I have some sort of malware rooted into my OS and need to reformat. If the reader saw my post about my broken OS on the other computer, well, let us say that I am scared to reformat right now without at least one working computer in case reformatting messes this one up too. Thank you for any info and peace.
It could be a hardware problem such as a bad power supply. RootkitRevealer by SysInternals will reveal any API discrepancies. Sony had a nasty DRM rootkit late last year. Otherwise it's probably a good idea to wipe your hardrive clean and reinstall the OS.
CLOSELY inspected the CPU heat sink/ fan? power supply fan? Oftentimes the CPU heat sink top becomes plugged w/a layer of crap blocking air flow down the fins. Reduced/ lack of air flow then allows the CPU to overheat...
Yea I read about heat problems causing crashs. I did't put much thought in it as my crashes seemed to be program specific. But since the crashs spread a little I will check into it now. Interesting, actually. Sometimes the fan turns off too. The computer sounds like it turns off LoL but is still running without the fan. It clicks back on if I do something.
Depending on the type of MoBo you have another possible cause could be faulty capacitors. I had an Aopen MoBo that suddenly started doing just what you describe and I had a devil of a time trying to figure out what was wrong (even reinstalled twice to no avail). Then I finally had a look inside the case and lo and behold i noticed that several of the capacitors (the little silvery coke can things dotted around the CPU and RAM slot area) were bubbled open and oozing. Turns out that Aopen (and perhaps a number of other MoBo manufacturers) had used faulty Taiwanese capacitors in boards produced between 2001-2003 (slot A boards for certain). I simply grabbed an MSI replacement board with roughly the same specs before the shop ran out of them in favour of more up to date technology and havent had a problem since. Check it out.
Usually associated with overheating esp: of CPU and graphics cards other causes can include a faulty power supply buy another fan, and put it directed at the cpu and the grfx card
Here's more info on cap probs. http://www.badcaps.net/ http://www.technutopia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1960
If you're 'thrifty' try a down n dirty test first. Remove the case side and place a 20" box fan so that it blows on the component (slot) side of the MB. Instant industrial strength cooling. *L* This won't help trouble shoot any PS fan problems. If the PS case is very warm to the touch/ no air exiting its enclosure/ fan not turning chances are the PS fan is bad.
Mine shuts of when it over heats. I added stuff but not more cooling and when my A/C was out it would blue screen of death and on reboot be missing or corrupted system 32/hal.dll not much I can do now need a new case to add cooling...moving soon...lo-pri
The fan on my other computer is definitely blowing harder than this one. Still though: I can run a game like ultima online that taxs the system more than meridian59 and it won't crash. So I think its viral.