PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: SarahR on August 08, 2005, 19:12
-
Hiya, i hope u can help.
For the past few months now my computer has had a habit of freezing totally. It could be running fine for hours, then just out of the blue, no matter what you're doing, it will freeze completely. Nothing i can do can get it working other than the reset button! It looks like the whole computer just shuts down, as the keyboard stops working (I try pressing the caps lock to see if the light will come on, nothing) and the hard drive light stops flashing. Once the system reboots, it has then been known to freeze again 5 mins after.
Now, i originally thought this was to do with the RAM so i replaced it but the same thing was happening again. I added the RAM to what i originally had and also tried replacing it completely and still no luck. I even formatted my hard drive and that didn't work either.
I've checked the loading order of everything and removed anything i didn't need on the startup. I have checked for any viruses and my pc's clean and My drivers are all ok and updated. I have recently re-installed windows with a fresh copy and when inside my PC i'm careful not to shock anything inside and only go inside if i need to. I have installed a program to test CPU and memory temperatures and they all seem to be fine.
My specs are:
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
1.30 gigahertz AMD Duron
100.51 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
58.39 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
Maxtor 32049H2 [Hard drive] (20.49 GB)
ST380011A [Hard drive] (80.03 GB)
SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-352B
TEAC CD-524EA
Board: ASRock K7VM2 2.00
2x 256 Megabytes Installed Memory
I don't know the specs for my power supply as it was replaced for a new one after the other one packed in. Have looked inside but there are no labels i can see.
I really hope someone can help as i can't afford to replace the whole computer!
Thanks
-
Hi Sarah and :welcome:
It certainly sounds like a RAM problem, but it could be a mobo fault too, such as a cracked board or a dry joint.
Intermittent faults are about the worst to find and fix as you dont know if its sorted or not until it fails again :(
Have you run a memory testing program at all ?
Theres a free one here that you could try :
http://www.memtest86.com/
-
It's also possible that it could be a faulty, or slightly insecure graphics card. Might be worth taking it out, and giving the contracts a clean.
-
Hi Sandra, thanks for the help, although i don't have a floppy drive in my PC and my Cd writer appears not to be working (typical!). Are there any other programs i could use that you don't have to boot up using the floppy?
And thanks Simon, i will give that a try, although it doesn't appear to be just the screen that freezes, the whole PC appears to shut down, could it still be the graphics?
-
It has been known. I built a PC for a friend, which was working fine until I took it round to his house, then it started freezing. Completely. It had received a bump in the car, which must have slightly unsettled the graphics card, and reseating it fixed the problem.
Of course, this only applies to stand alone graphics cards, i.e. not integrated with the motherboard.
-
Ok, well i'll give that a quick check and hope thats a problem.
If u don't hear from me in a while, it probably means my PC hasn't frozen yet, sometimes it can take a while to freeze!
-
Are there any other programs i could use that you don't have to boot up using the floppy?
And thanks Simon, i will give that a try, although it doesn't appear to be just the screen that freezes, the whole PC appears to shut down, could it still be the graphics?
Most of the diagnostic programs boot from the floppy. Some of the newer commercial ones boot from the CD.
Have you got a USB flash drive, sometimes they can be made bootable and you could run the floppy prog from one of those maybe ?
-
I just looked on the memtest site and you can download an iso image to make a bootable CD rom :)
ISO images suitable for creating a bootable Memtest86 CDROM
Download - Memtest86 v3.2 ISO image (zip)
Download - Memtest86 v3.2 ISO image (gzip)
Just noticed that you said your writer isnt working :(
Have you got a friend or a neighbour who could download and burn a cd for you ?
The other option is to get a program such as Si Soft Sandra which runs inside windows and has burn in testing facilities :)
-
A short will freeze a machine. A short can form from the random dust particals closing a curcuit on one of your peices of hardware. Take out all the cards. Stick in the new ram, and boot it up using a spare video card. Let it sit for a day and wait for it to freeze. If it doesn't then your problem is with one of the cards. Put them in one at a time and wait a day between install each. Now if it still freezes with the new video card and new ram without the other cards installed then sandras right and your problems probably with the mainboard.
-
My PC froze again after i cleaned the video card so it can't be that.
Also, i have downloaded Sisoft Sandra but i'm not sure what to do to check it! there are so many options on there its confusing me!
I have no-one near me that has a CD writer, i am living away from home and only one person i live with has a PC and that hasn't got a CD writer! I harly know anyone else here!
I will try taking my video card out tomorrow and use the onboard card, will have to search for the drivers...!
-
If you open Si soft Sandra theres a module called "Burn in Wizard" its a flame symbol.
If you click on that it has different options that you can select to test various componets when you hit the green forward arrow key.
Tick the Memory Bandwith Benchmark and the Cache and Memory Benchmark then click the green forward arrow.
It defaults to running the tests 10 times, that should be ok left as it is, click next and then next again :)
-
Well it says its finished successfully...
The board temperature is 48-49.5 deg C and CPU is 63-64, fan speed is 4042 rpm
Is this good or bad?
-
Thats within normal ranges I think Sarah.
I cant think what else to suggest to try.
Is it completely random or does it happen more when you are using it for some cpu/ram intensive program :?
-
It's completely random from what i can work out.
Sometimes it can download if i'm downloading something, sometimes if i just leave a webpage up. Once it froze while writing an e-mail, then when i restarted and wrote the same e-mail it froze again!
I can't think of one particular thing triggering it off!
I'm running out of ideas myself, i think my only option is to buy another but i can't really afford it!
-
Had an idea that may point us in the right direction Sarah.
Have you looked in the event viewer when you reboot after it freezes ?
It may give you an error code or message that we can interpret.
If you havent seen it before its in Control Panel/Admin Tools then Event Viewer.
Click on System and see if there are any Red Xs at the time your pc froze.
There will probably be lots of them all over the log but the ones at the time that the pc last froze may help us to find the problem and hopefully the solution :)
-
Great, will just wait for the PC to freeze again then!
If that all fails, have just found out theres a computer fair just round the corner from me next weekend so if the worst comes to the worst, will just buy a brand new system! (well i say brand new.... I mean to me!)
-
Not sure if this is of any use to you, but just took a look the the events viewer now and there are several yellow warning signs, all named Tcpip.
There are 3 within an hour of each other about the time it last froze.
and i found only 3 recent red X's (yesterday) they were in a row, within 8 secs of each other and the name is DCOM. Same thing happened 2 days before that too! Can pinpoint if it was at the time of freezing though.
Also 1 major 1 where there were 9 x's in a row within 1 min! 4 days ago.
This seems to be the only red X i am getting.
-
Dont need to wait Sarah, if you have a look and scroll back down the page, as long as you know roughly what time the last one was :)
It keeps them from the day the OS was installed I think.
If you double click on something that has the red circle with white X in it it will open a bopx with a bit more detail.
The bit to look for is on the top right hand side of that box the Event ID number.
There may well be a few next to each other, some may be the same number or maybe diferent ones, list them all if there are a few around the freeze up time :)
-
The TCP/IP shouldnt be a problem, thats for the networking part, even if you havent set one up.
The DCOM is a common fault too which doesnt seem to cause any real problems.
The event viewer seems to record every hiccup no matter how slight a fault it is unfortunately but sometimes it can be very helpful :)
Are the 9 in a row from a day or so back all DCOM too ?
What are the event ID numbers please ?
-
The warnings say: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.
I think the Red X's have something to do with when i was running in safe mode as it has:
DCOM got error "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode " attempting to start the service netman with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}
-
It just froze as i sent that! I got a warning message:
The server could not bind to the transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{EEFF8BC9-49EA-4BAE-9923-F587186A9B1A}.
-
Are you networked at all Sarah ?
The previous message {BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E} refers to :
Network Connection Manager Class 2.
The latest one seems to be network related too.
Which kind of connection to the net are you on and who is your ISP please ?
-
Yes, i am networked to 2 other computers in my house.
None of the others have had any problems but i am the administrator on the network.
I am on broadband with Telewest.
I'm pretty sure the problems occurred before it went on a network though
-
Ok everything points to a fault with the Netbui protocol.
It seems there could be some problem with the other pcs having the same name or your pc thinking they have.
Can you isolate your pc from the others for a while to see if that cures yours from freezing ?
If not can you check and make sure that all the computer names are different, if you have used the same XP cd to install on each it may have somehow given the same name to two of them, unlikely but pcs can do strange things.
Can you tell me how you have set your network up and which protocols you are using please, if you right click on your LAN icon and select properties it will list them in there :)
-
I found this about the number of TCP connection attempts :
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1497
Do you do a lot of P2P stuff ?
That may be part of the problem :?
-
Do you mean the name that you give your PC when you install Windows? because mine is "Sarah" so i doubt the others will be the same! All the computers were installed with different windows disks so that won't be the problem.
I won't be able to disable the network, one of my flatmates is a recluse and spends his days on his pc and will complain loads if the network was taken away!
I do some P2P stuff but it doesn't have to be running for the PC to freeze.
My network is running wirelessly. I'm not sure how to find my protocols, i have the LAN properties up and i can see a list of things on there:
Client for Microsoft Networks
File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks
QoS Packet Scheduker
AEGIS Protocol (IEEE 802.1x) v3.0.0.5
Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
Don't know if that helps at all...
Do i need to click on something else?
-
Ok thats the bit I wanted to see.
We may be on the wrong track and it may not be the networking side thats freezing your pc but the only warnings that the event viewer is giving us is network related so we may as well try and resolve those faults in the hope that theyre the culprit.
The name that it will be checking will be the one that windows assigns itself, if you look in your workgroup computers there will be an alphanumeric number for each one that the network sees, the individual name that you give your own pc is easier for you to identify which is which pc, I dont think windows would even know or care if that name was duplicated.
I am not sure what the QoS Packet Scheduler does on the network but I dont think its a protocol that you need and I read that someone mentioned that it was causing them some problems until they removed it.
Try removing it and see if that does anything, you can always add it back again if you find that something stops working properly :)
What does your network consist of Sarah, is your pc the one thats connected to the net then wi fi to the others or are you wi fi from a router or another host pc ?
-
I fould this about the QoS scheduler :
Q: What is QoS Packet Scheduler? (#3688)
A: Note. This only effects LAN traffic and not Internet access speeds. Also, in order for this to work, QoS Packet Scheduler must be supported on both sides of the connection.
QoS Packet Scheduler is a method of network bandwidth management that can monitor the importance of data packets and depending upon the priority of the packet, give it higher or lower priority or bandwidth levels.
So I dont think theres any reason why you should need it :)
I still dont know if it will solve your problem or not but freezing often means that something is taking up all the ram or cpu so a software problem such as something wrong with the QoS thing may cause it.
-
This could still be a graphics card problem - maybe it's overheating, or faulty? Can I suggest you revert to the onboard graphics, and see if that cures the freezing? Not sure whether you would need to remove the stand alone graphics card or not. If the BIOS is set to look for the onboard video, it may just ignore the card. Of course, the other option is to try another graphics card, if you have one.
-
The router is connected to my pc and then Wi fi'd out to the other computers.
I have removed the QoS Packet Scheduler and see if that works and then i will try the graphics card problem as thats a little trickier! I don't have any spare graphics cards so it will have to be the onboard one i'm afraid.
-
So you could run your pc with the LAN disabled if you have a Wi Fi router, or is it a Wi Fi access point from your pc to the others :?
If youre using a Wi Fi router then try your pc off the network and see if it still freezes.
-
Yeah, it's definitely a router. If i disabled it would that mean i would be disconnected from the internet?
And to disable it do i just need to click disable in the network connections window?
-
As long as its a Wi Fi router the other pcs are independant of yours.
You can just open the network connections folder and right click on your LAN icon and select Disable.
That will leave your other pcs on the network able to connect to the net via the Wi Fi router but will isolate you from both them and the net.
Its unlikely that its a newtork or internet connection problem but the more we can eliminate the easier it may become.
If it doesnt freeze when its offline and not networked then we can rule out hardware problems and concentrate on software or corrupted OS.
If it still freezes then we are back to square one again :(
-
Ok well i'll try that one now then, my pc froze again so i tried removing my graphics card and it froze not long after so i will give the internet a try!
Will leave my PC on and see if it freezes and get back to you if it freezes!
-
Make it work if you can do Sarah by playing a DVD film or something involving a lot of graphics editing or music editing/converting etc.
It may stay up if its not got any real work to do, (I have known guys like that :roll: ), so try and make it work as hard as you can :)
-
Well i left my pc on overnight and even played lots of videos. I even left it playing videos all night and still nothing! It was still running perfectly this morning!
So i'm guessing that means its not hardware related at all....
-
Well it still may be hardware but its looking like its the network side of things.
Is your ethernet LAN onboard or a seperate card ?
It may be worth trying another card if its a seperate one, theyre under a tenner from most places and it may be that its developed a fault or the drivers not installed properly.
Is this the longest you think its worked since you started having the problems or do you think it may happen again a little later ?
I know that you have done your av and adware scans but it could stil be something that tries connecting to teh net when you are online.
When you said you reinstalled your OS was that a clean install or did you just run it over the top of the old one ?
Sorry for all the questions but we seem like we may be getting somewhere at last and I dont want you to have to buy a new pc or any other parts unnecessarily :)
-
Its an onboard LAN and as for replacing it, the only computer shop i can see close by is very useless, a friend of mine had a problem with them when he bought a LAN card ther so don't want to risk going there again!
Also, i was on another network before i moved house and there were no problems then. Although it was a uni network so i wasn't an administrator or anything.
That was the longest it has been running in a while as far as i can remember.
And when i installed the operating system, i think it was installed over the top, although i'm pretty sure it formatted the hard drive. When it boots up now there are 2 options, i can go onto the one where its how it was when i formatted and then theres the new one. If that makes any sense...
-
Ok so it looks like we have deifnately isolated the fault and its either something connecting to the net or a problem with your LAN.
Can you find the latest motherboard drivers for your motherboard from the manufacturers site ?
There may be an update that could improve its behavour, if not uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the onboard LAN in case they have been corrupted.
Sometimes if you select the wrong option when reinstalling XP it puts another version alongside the old one and in effect turns it into a dual boot system.
It shouldnt matter too much apart from the option to select which OS can slow the boot process a little.
If it is something thats running in the background and trying to connect to the net thats causing the problem then if you dont mind doing a full reinstall again that may be a thing to try.
Whenever I do a fresh install of XP I select the delete the partition option and delete the partition which has the original installation of XP on it, usually C: , then create the partition again and install XP to that one, that means that anything that was left over from the previous installation cant interfere with the new clean install.
-
I have installed the drivers from my motherboard website.
I will try again with the XP installation but am a little scared that it will delete my other drive as well. I have an F drive as well as my C drive.
Is it worth taking the F drive out for a bit to see if that does anything?
-
Yes always best to do that to be on the safe side.
I once had my boot drive split into two partitions and a seperate single partition slave drive
I carefully copied everything to my E drive and then formatted the whole boot drive and repartitioned it and installed XP again.
To my horror I found that the second partition of my boot drive was E and the slave was D so I wiped everything off my pc completely :shock:
All you need to do is to remove the 4 pin connector for the power to your slave drive, you can leave the IDE cable in and it wont know its there if it doesnt power up :)
Did the new drivers make any difference or did it start freezing up again after updating them ?
-
Well i have only just re-installed the drivers, have been busy working the past few days so have only just had the chance!
Will see what it's like this evening, perhaps leave it running overnight, then i will remove my F drive and see what that does!
Will get back to you in due course
-
Good luck, maybe the new drivers have fixed something :)
-
The PC froze again so i took the power cable from out the back of my slave drive and booted it up again but my pc said something about a hardware configuration and wouldn't let me load my PC.
Before formatting again, i just want to be assured that my F drive won't be touched because i have lots of stuff on there i don't want to lose!
-
Are you sure it was the slave drive and not the master that you removed the power cable from ?
Depending on the make and model of hard drive the jumpers may need changing on the master drive, sometimes theyre placed differently for a single master to when its a master with slave.
Theres usually a diagram on the drive itself showing where they should be.
It depends how careful you are if you leave the slave connected when formatting that you select the correct drive. Its much safer to disable the drive with your data on that you need, then you cant possibly make a mistake.
-
I remember when we installed the 2nd hard drive we had a few problwms because the jumper on the 1st one wasn't on master, it was on something else so we had to change the jumpers on the 2nd one to something different.
I think i remember we had to set it so that they were on the same IDE cable. It was a while ago so its a little hazy
-
I tend to prefer the two hard drives to be on the primary IDE channel and the CD and DVD drives on the secondary IDE channel.
It shouldnt really matter too much how they are set up though, as long as the jumpers and the cables are set correctly.
The end connector on the IDE ribbon cable should connect to the master drive whether its a hard drive or a CD/DVD drive.
The middle connector goes to the slave.
I think the boot drive is better being set as the master on the primary IDE but if you have set a dual boot system up they seem to work ok with the second OS on either the primary slave or as master or slave on the secondary IDE channel so I suppose it doesnt matter too much which way round they are.
It just seems more logical to have the OS on the master on the primary channel :)
-
Ok, well i've formatted my C drive, but i can still see files there that haven't been deleted. I know i formatted it this time because it asked me if i definitely wanted to delete it, etc...
I went through all the options, chose my C drive and asked if i wanted to overwite the last windows installed and then asked if i was sure!
The dual boot is also still there.
I'm losing faith...!
-
Thats why I said select the option to delete the partition that has the OS on :roll:
Then create a new one and install to that :)
-
I tried to delete the partition but it wouldnt let me! It would only let me overwrite.
Will have a more detailed look after the weekend. have a very busy weekend to get over first and them will be straight on it on monday!
-
I will see if I can find or write exactly at what point the option comes up at Sarah, before monday for you.
Is your C drive a single partition or have you got a second partition on it ?
-
It says i have an 8mb partition as well as the large one and then the F drive has just the one
-
Yes they always have an unusable 8mb partition for some reason.
You definately booted from the CD and didnt run it from inside windows did you ?
Thats the only way it wouldnt let you delete the partition as far as I know :?
-
That might be why, a friend of mine who's a computer student told me to format on windows, i guess he was wrong! explains a lot.
Will do it properly when i can. Do i change the settings in BIOS to boot up by cd?
-
Yes thats all you do Sarah :)
I have seen this on a webpage so I will paste the relevant part just in case you arent sure on the process and add a few bits that werent just as clear or explicit as I would have liked.
Set the PC to boot from CD in the BIOS.
When the PC starts it will have a line at the bottom of the screen saying "Press any key to boot from CD"
If you cant find the "any" key, Simon spent two weeks looking for it once :wink: Just hit the space bar :D
NB. At some stage in the reinstallation the PC will reboot and the same line will appear again, DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING AT THIS STAGE after a few seconds it will boot up and carry on with the installation, if you press a key you will start from stage 1 again and go round in circles :)
At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER to continue.
Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.
If an existing Windows XP installation is detected, you are prompted to repair it. Press ESC (do not repair).
All existing partitions and unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard disk. Use the arrow keys to select the partition where you want to delete the partition, and then press D to delete the existing partition.
If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this process for each of the existing partitions that you want to delete, you can delete teh 8mb one but theres no need as it will recreate it anyway.
When all the partitions are deleted, you can then select the resulting unpartitioned space and then press C to create the new partition.
Type the size (in megabytes, or MB) that you want to use for the new partition, and then press ENTER, or just press ENTER to create the partition using the maximum size.
If you want to install Windows XP, use the arrow keys to select the partition you want to install Windows XP on, and then press ENTER.
Select the format option that you want to use for the partition, and then press ENTER. The options are::
* Format the partition by using the NTFS file system (Quick)
* Format the partition by using the FAT file system (Quick)
* Format the partition by using the NTFS file system
* Format the partition by using the FAT file system
I usually use the NTFS quick option as that knocks out the MBR (master boot record) the full takes longer as it scans the hard drive for faults, either will do though.
Then just follow the normal installation procedure as you have already done.
That should see you with a nice new clean installation of XP, ask me if theres anything that youre not sure about.
Dont forget to go back into the BIOS afterwards and set it back to boot from the hard drive as the first boot device :)
-
ok, that seems easy enough. one final thing, which format option do you suggest i use?
-
Ah youre getting to be too quick for me Sarah :wink:
I just went and edited my post to add that part :)
Either NTFS Quick or Full. If you have plenty of time do the full one but the quick one is usually sufficient :)
-
Well i formatted again (couldn't sleep), this time i did it properly, i know this cos my F drive is now a D drive!
My pc froze again after about an hour of being on.
I have the 'DCOM' error twice at the same time:
DCOM got error "The service database is locked. " attempting to start the service BITS with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{4991D34B-80A1-4291-83B6-3328366B9097}
and 2 Tcpip errors earlier on:
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.
My pc was fine during the formatting and installing processes, no freezes or anything.
-
Was this after you had set the network up and gone on line Sarah ?
I came across this which is exactly the same error message from the event viewer log :
http://blog.thedevins.com/archives/000488.php
So its looking like its something related to your network again :?
Do you use the network for file and printer sharing or just to share the internet connection ?
If you only use it for the internet connection then disable or uninstall all
the networking protocols and then see if it still connects to the internet and works without freezing.
If it wont connect to the net it may need TCP/IP but as I have only just got up my brains not fully in gear at the moment :roll:
Xp connects to the net normally without needing to run the network wizard when its on an ethernet connection to the router but I am not sure which protocols it uses, probably the TCP/IP one :?
-
Yes, it was after i'd installed the network when it froze again.
I only use the internet connection, never managed to work out the file sharing malarky!
I did try uninstalling some network protocols but then it came up with the windows error pop up for the wireless adapter and popped up every few seconds! Could you tell me which ones i can safely remove?
No rush, let your brains wake up again, am working a 12 hour shift so won't be back till this time tomorrow, just having a wind down after a hard days work before bed...
-
Hi Sarah, as I thought earlier the only protocol you need for the internet is the TCP/IP one.
I have just read that the DCOM thing is installed automatically by XP and isnt needed either, unless youre networking with another pc. Dont bother about that though, even though it was one of the error messages you got.
I think that once you only have TCP/IP left then that wont be used anyway :)
If you can face doing it again you could always reinstall XP again, deleting the partition like last time and then creating it and dont run the networking wizard this time.
When you plug the ethernet lead in it should just connect to the net without installing the other protocols for the LAN.
That seems a bit drastic though as I am sure you can just uninstall the unwanted network protocols :)
-
Well i did what you said yesterday morning and left it on all night last night and all day today (with music video's on repeat!)
It hasn't froze once! I'm guessing the problem has been fixed!
I would just like to thank you for all your help, you've been very patient with me!
If i get any more problems i will post back.
-
Thats great but still puzzling Sarah.
Strangely enough I have been having problems with a friends pc for the last week or so doing strange things like yours.
I told him earlier this evening to try disabling the networking protocols apart from the TCP/IP one as hes using a router but doesnt share files that much.
I would love to find out, if his sorts itself out, just why yours and his is being funny with the networking sharing being used :?
-
Yes, very puzzling! but i'm just pleased its back to it's old self again and i don't have to buy a new PC.
Just one quick final question, didnt wanna open a new thread cos its probably an easy question
my friend has just been given a PC with windows 98 on and wants to upgrade to XP but doesnt want to format cos theres a lot of stuff on there he wants to keep. Is this possible without leaving 98 on the hard drive as well? If theres another thread relevant, just post the link!
-
You can get an 'Upgrade' version of XP, which does install over the top of an existing Windows 98 installation, but most people will say it's better to back up everything that is being kept, format the disc and do a clean installation of XP. This might be of some use:-
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/upgrading/default.mspx
-
hi all, i'm back again!
My pc's started freezing again...
It froze twice last night and again just now. If its any help, i was downloading and listening to music each time it froze. Was looking at the event viewer before my pc froze last time and the two yellow warnings were up 30 mins before it actually froze. They were:
Source: tcpip
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.
Source: Dhcp
Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 001150777B51. The following error occurred:
The semaphore timeout period has expired. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.
Then 30 mins later when it froze the red error came up:
Source: Service control manager
The IPSEC Services service terminated with the following error:
The authentication service is unknown.
The same thing pretty much happened last night too.
And it was going so well.....
Almost 24 hours without a problem.
-
Sorry to hear that Sarah, I thought wed manage to sort it :(
There was something I posted earlier in this thread about removing the maximum limit of concurrent TCP/IP connection attempts which for some reason was only introduced with SP2.
I will see if I can find it and then you can remove the limit and see if that cures the current problem.
-
Ok heres the link :
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1497
Theres a patch that you can download at the bottom of the article that when applied will restore it to how it used to be with SP1 by the looks of it.
That may help to finally cure it with any luck :)
-
Ok, i changed the limit to 50, is that ok?
I'm pretty sure i've done that before but i'm not sure how long ago it was so i'll give it a try!
-
I have had a look around for information on this :
The IPSEC Services
I dont think you need it, it seems to be for servers behind a NAT enabled router.
Go into Admin Tools/Services and scroll down IPSEC Services Double click on it and change the Startup Type to Disabled.
If it wont connect to the net again then you will have to set it back to automatic but as I said I dont think that you require it :)
-
It froze again! came up with the same tcpip problem. shall i change the limit to more?
i also did what you said about IPSEC services
-
Was it just the TCP/IP connection attempts limit exceeded this time and no other message ?
-
yeah, it was just that message that pops up
-
Well it seems that it was unlimited before SP2 so maybe it needs a lot higher limit :?
I am a little surprised that its trying to connect so often as to exceed the limits when you have a router.
I would have thought that the router would have blocked most connection attempts.
Have you opened some extra ports in your router for some programs such as P2P that you no longer use or disabled your NAT or DMZ if your router has that feature ?
-
Sorry to interrupt, but couldn't the excessive number of connection attempts indicate something more sinister going on in the background? I'm not sure how well we could decipher it, Sarah, but have you ever used Hijack This, or X-RayPC? Both of these programs tell you in detail, what's running in the background, and might be worth a look.
Hijack This (http://tomcoyote.com/hjt/)
x-raypc (http://www.x-raypc.com/)
-
No, i haven't opened any extra ports and theres only 1 p2p i use and that only runs when i need it.
and simon, i did a scan using HijackThis. Here is what it came up with:
Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 15:36:36, on 18/08/2005
Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)
Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\csrss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\PROGRA~1\FILTER~1\filtergate.exe
C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_03\bin\jusched.exe
C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe
C:\Program Files\Spyware Doctor\swdoctor.exe
C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger\MsnMsgr.Exe
D:\LimeWire\LimeWire.exe
C:\Program Files\Belkin\Belkin Wireless Network Utility\WLService.exe
C:\Program Files\Belkin\Belkin Wireless Network Utility\WLanCfgG.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\alg.exe
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\wuauclt.exe
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\DOCUME~1\Sarah\LOCALS~1\Temp\Temporary Directory 3 for hijackthis.zip\HijackThis.exe
O2 - BHO: PCTools Site Guard - {5C8B2A36-3DB1-42A4-A3CB-D426709BBFEB} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYWAR~1\tools\iesdsg.dll
O2 - BHO: PCTools Browser Monitor - {B56A7D7D-6927-48C8-A975-17DF180C71AC} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYWAR~1\tools\iesdpb.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [FilterGate] C:\PROGRA~1\FILTER~1\filtergate.exe /ASK
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_03\bin\jusched.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Spyware Doctor] "C:\Program Files\Spyware Doctor\swdoctor.exe" /Q
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [MsnMsgr] "C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger\MsnMsgr.Exe" /background
O4 - Startup: LimeWire On Startup.lnk = D:\LimeWire\LimeWire.exe
O9 - Extra button: Spyware Doctor - {2D663D1A-8670-49D9-A1A5-4C56B4E14E84} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYWAR~1\tools\iesdpb.dll
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O16 - DPF: {B38870E4-7ECB-40DA-8C6A-595F0A5519FF} (MsnMessengerSetupDownloadControl Class) - http://messenger.msn.com/download/msnmessengersetupdownloader.cab
O23 - Service: Belkin 54g Wireless USB Network Adapter (Belkin 54g Wireless USB Network Adapter Service) - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files\Belkin\Belkin Wireless Network Utility\WLService.exe
-
I am not used to analysing Hi Jack logs but I notice at the bottom that you have a USB network adaptor.
Youre connecting via ethernet arent you and the other pcs connect wirelessly to your router so theres no need for you to have that installed and running on yours.
That may explain why you are geting so many network connection attempts if its constantly trying to connect wirelessly :?
Unless youre the host pc for the wi fi pcs to connect through then uninstall and unplug it.
-
Oh really? i got told i needed it for my pc too. (Damn you money grabbers!!)
Will give that a try then...
-
Thats terrible as the Belkin stuff isnt cheap :(
Was probably someone at PC world told you that did they ?
-
No actually it was dixons! but it wasnt bad actually, the usb's were only £20 each.
Have had my pc on running videos since i removed the usb so fingers crossed! will keep u posted.
-
dixons = pc world really - owned by the same group!
-
I notice you have Limewire, Sarah, and loading at startup too.
I got rid as all I got was loads of spyware and trojans from limewire.
-
Well spotted, Lona! Unless it's the Pro version, I believe Limewire does contain spyware, and personally, I wouldn't recommend having any P2P program running at start up, as it's then on all the time, using resources. Wouldn't think it would be the cause of constant disconnections, though.
-
Its only on the start up because i couldn't be bothered to change it when i re-installed it! I will change everything back once i get the problems sorted. I don't get any spyware from limewire anyway, its pretty well behaved.
-
It's not what you download from it, Sarah, Limewire used to contain spyware within the program itself, which is why the Pro version was more sought after. Maybe it doesn't now - I haven't used it for a while. In any case, this is probably sidetracking from your problem. Unless, of course, it's responsible for your multiple connection attempts. :)
-
Has it stabalised now you have uninstalled and unplugged the USB Wi Fi thing ?
-
Yeah it has for now but i'll see how it goes before i say its ok, i don't wanna bring my hopes up again!
-
Ok Sarah, I will keep my fingers crossed for you.
Keep us informed please, as to what happens :)
-
Hi all,
Thought i'd give it a few days to see how my pc goes and it now seems to be running fine!
And to think, none of this would have happened if Dixons would have done their job properly!
Thanks a lot for all your help, i don't know what i would have done without the help from you guys (Except waste a load of money on a new PC only for it to probably happen to that one!).
-
Thats great Sarah, thanks for letting us know that it now seems to be sorted, at last :)