system restarts spiratically

[DannyB]

OS: Windows XP

system restarts spiratically when running any application. It never does this while online but if I start a program such as a video game or DVD Shrink or anything else then the system restarts.

Microsofts "Send Report" function returns:

A device driver cuased the problem.
(yesterday it was the graphics driver. Today it wasn't specific)

Suggestion:

update the offending driver (I updated the graphics driver using the Device Manager)

System Restore (I restored the system to 6 weeks prior to any problems)

Start Windows XP with the last known good configuration (done)

None of the above worked. What else could I try?

[Horus_Kol]

well, the first question is what have you done to the PC between it working and not working - although on a family computer, this can be very difficult to track down... no knowing what kids (or parents) are upto :)

looking at the programs that you specified, I would say it is a graphics driver issue... do you have the original driver on a CD?

[DannyB]

Hi HK!


I would say it is a graphics driver issue...


That's exactly what it is.

Now microsoft is specifying the Graphics Driver as the culprit. I already restored it but it hasn't fixed the problem.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

Did you recently install any new hardware?

[hammerstein_04]

I have always had the issue whereby my nVidia cards would never work stable with the most up to date, I always had to go a few versions back before I could get stability.

How is your system for cooling? If the graphics card is having to work (Games) then this could cause reboots, however DVD shrink, that would suggest processor usage (could explain differing error reports).

But, as aerospace says, have you installed anything recently?

[DannyB]

not hardware. We've installed a few pc games recently.
My oldest son KidKoder installed a PSone (playstation) emulator so that he could try out some roms. I deleted them to see if that was the problem but to no avail.

[DannyB]

I gave up and installed a new vid card. It appears to have fixed the problem as it has not yet restarted the system. I am currently running DVD Shrink to see if it will work all the way through but I think it will.

[DannyB]

I was wrong.

It's doing it again.

Microsoft says something is conflicting with the graphics driver but Windows says it's running properly.

Could this be a virus?

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

Maybe but not likely. Can you give us more specs on your system? It could be spyware or a virus but thats the last thing I'm thinking right now. What might be happening is your hardware is running to fast and your system can't keep up with it. The hardware acceleration is the technical term for it. You can decrease this to see if it solves problems.

Start (on WinXP)>Control Panel>Display>Settings Tab>Advanced Button>Look for troubleshooting, hardware acceleration should be in this section. Drag the slider to something lower than it is, restart your system and see if the problem still occurs. An alternate way to get to the Display Dialogue box is right click on your desktop and click on properties.

[hammerstein_04]

But games won't work properly with hardware acceleration lowered. This is the setting you had to change originally on XP Pro to enable it to play games wasn't it Aero? Are you just trying to rule out overheating on the graphics card.. ?

Have you done a complete virus scan / spyware scan of your machine? Also there is a really useful tool (that for some reason I am struggling to remember the name of) that you can run that will list everything in your startup, you could post the results so we could see if there is any malicious stuff running. I will work on trying to remember that name..

If you have changed the video card, it would still be using the same drivers wouldn't it? so that wouldn't necessarily fix the problem.

Do a full virus scan, spyware scan and then get back to us with those results.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

But games won't work properly with hardware acceleration lowered. This is the setting you had to change originally on XP Pro to enable it to play games wasn't it Aero? Are you just trying to rule out overheating on the graphics card.. ?

Have you done a complete virus scan / spyware scan of your machine? Also there is a really useful tool (that for some reason I am struggling to remember the name of) that you can run that will list everything in your startup, you could post the results so we could see if there is any malicious stuff running. I will work on trying to remember that name..

If you have changed the video card, it would still be using the same drivers wouldn't it? so that wouldn't necessarily fix the problem.

Do a full virus scan, spyware scan and then get back to us with those results.
You are probably right, it might effect gaming but it would help determine the problem. In which case it could be an overheated graphics card. The program I believe you are referring to is called HijackThis (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html).

[hammerstein_04]

That's the one! Cheers aero.

Yeah, I understood the reason for lowering the acceleration, just wanted to make sure that it was pointed out that games wouldn't work properly.

Danny, the combine this with the virus scan / spyware scan and we might start to narrow down the cause.

[DannyB]

Yeah, I already did all of the above and I've still got nothing.

Here is the report if you wish.

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 10:36:25 AM, on 8/28/2005
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\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\spoolsv.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\dcfssvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lbsrvwrp.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Lbserver.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\slserv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\mHotkey.exe
C:\Program Files\eM\Bay Reader\Shwicon2k.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\KEMailKb\KEMailKb.EXE
C:\Documents and Settings\Dan\My Documents\HijackThis.exe

R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://red.clientapps.yahoo.com/customize/ie/defaults/su/ymsgr6/*http://www.yahoo.com
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar = http://red.clientapps.yahoo.com/customize/ie/defaults/sb/ymsgr6/*http://www.yahoo.com/ext/search/search.html
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://red.clientapps.yahoo.com/customize/ie/defaults/sp/ymsgr6/*http://www.yahoo.com
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Local Page =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Local Page =
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,ProxyOverride = localhost
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHlprObj Class - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {53707962-6F74-2D53-2644-206D7942484F} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\System32\NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [CHotkey] mHotkey.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [showicon2k] C:\Program Files\\eM\Bay Reader\Shwicon2k.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NeroCheck] C:\WINDOWS\system32\NeroCheck.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [BJCFD] C:\Program Files\BroadJump\Client Foundation\CFD.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TkBellExe] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe" -osboot
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [WorkFlow] E:\installs\BrdJmp\WorkFlow.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG7_CC] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe /STARTUP
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [KEMailKb] C:\PROGRA~1\KEMailKb\KEMailKb.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Internet LanBridge]

O4 - Global Startup: Microsoft Office.lnk = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\OSA.EXE
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office10\EXCEL.EXE/3000
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: {04E214E5-63AF-4236-83C6-A7ADCBF9BD02} (HouseCall Control) - http://housecall-beta.trendmicro.com/housecall/xscan60.cab
O16 - DPF: {31E68DE2-5548-4B23-88F0-C51E6A0F695E} (Microsoft PID Sniffer) - https://support.microsoft.com/OAS/ActiveX/odc.cab
O16 - DPF: {3AF4DACE-36ED-42EF-9DFC-ADC34DA30CFF} (PatchInstaller.Installer) -
O16 - DPF: {9A9307A0-7DA4-4DAF-B042-5009F29E09E1} (ActiveScan Installer Class) - http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/as5/asinst.cab
O16 - DPF: {B9191F79-5613-4C76-AA2A-398534BB8999} (YAddBook Class) - http://us.dl1.yimg.com/download.yahoo.com/dl/installs/suite/yautocomplete.cab
O16 - DPF: {ED28050F-D713-43BA-A376-DCC5C35407D5} (MsnMusicAx Class) - http://beta.entimg.msn.com/client/msnmusax2729.cab
O16 - DPF: {F58E1CEF-A068-4C15-BA5E-587CAF3EE8C6} (MSN Chat Control 4.5) - http://chat.msn.com/controls/msnchat45.cab
O23 - Service: AVG7 Alert Manager Server (Avg7Alrt) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe
O23 - Service: AVG7 Update Service (Avg7UpdSvc) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe
O23 - Service: Dcfssvc - Eastman Kodak Company - C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\dcfssvc.exe
O23 - Service: Virtual Motion Internet LanBridge Server (ILB Server) - Unknown owner - C:\WINDOWS\system32\lbsrvwrp.exe
O23 - Service: SmartLinkService (SLService) - - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\slserv.exe

[DannyB]

where'd you go?

[hammerstein_04]

I can't see anything that stands out as being particularly malicious. Unless you are a heavy user of the digital camera software, I would personally remove their processes from startup. Really, I would imagine it would be acceptable to load these up on an as per required basis. I don't think that is something to do with your restarts, but I always try to rule out driver conflicts of any type.

ie. The installation of my graphics tablet conflicted with the drivers for the MS Keyboard, so I had to uninstall the keyboard drivers to get the graphics table from stop crashing my system.

[DannyB]

I had recently uploaded some pics from my camera. It doesn't start up automatically. I have to urn it on when I use it but then I forget to turn it back off. LOL!

What else could be conflicting with the device driver?

[hammerstein_04]

At this stage, I would try the extreme. I wouldn't of gone so far myself, trying to determine the cause, I would of backed up the computer and reinstalled from scratch. (hopes this doesn't bring bad luck! Would need 20 dvds to back my computer up right now).

If there are no obvious driver conflicts, no pattern to the crashes and there are no obvious items of spyware installed, a fresh install is the last thing I would do to rule out any form of hardware conflict. If problems arise after a reinstallation, then it is 99% certain it is hardware.

Am sorry I can't offer any more help Danny, if you don't want to reinstall, you could always try more specific forums (if you haven't been there already) but I don't know of any off hand.

[scoutt]

ok Dan, do you have SP2 installed?

and you said you get a error? can you show us a screen shot, if possible?

one thign to try is to go into "My Computer" properties and advanced tab.adn then the settigs button on "Start up and Recovery" and UNcheck the automatic restart.

this should give you a BSOD, blue screen of death. if so please right down what it says and let us know