Big problems...

[ParanoiA]

First of all, my heart goes out to anyone who actually cares enough to read this, let alone respond. Most of these problems, if not all, I suspect are related. But I have no idea where to look, or what hardware to check out or suspect.

 

1) When playing Madden 2006, the only computer game I play and the only graphics heavy application I run, the computer will just restart at some seemingly random moment. Sometimes 5 minutes into a game, other times well after an hour of playing. I’ve used two different video cards now, and this happens regardless.

 

 

2) Sometimes the computer will just suddenly freeze. Will stop responding altogether and will presumably stay there forever. The mouse pointer frozen on the screen, no reaction from the keyboard. (haven’t actually experienced this one in a while though…)

 

3) Cannot access web pages that require some kind of security or encryption. So, no email, online banking…etc. I’ve actually found a lot of info on this and have tried every suggestion I’ve found.

 

4) The worst problem of all…when my computer restarts, it goes through this process of booting up and then restarting again midway through – sometimes it will get as far as displaying the desktop and then, click, restarting again. Of course, that’s if I’m lucky. Sometimes during this process it will get lost altogether – my monitor light will indicate no signal coming from the video card and the hard drive will eventually quit reading. I have to reset it or turn it off manually, and then the process starts again. Eventually, if I keep at it, it will finally boot up without interruption

 

 

So, there it is. Any ideas?

[foodchain]

First of all, my heart goes out to anyone who actually cares enough to read this, let alone respond. Most of these problems, if not all, I suspect are related. But I have no idea where to look, or what hardware to check out or suspect.

 

1) When playing Madden 2006, the only computer game I play and the only graphics heavy application I run, the computer will just restart at some seemingly random moment. Sometimes 5 minutes into a game, other times well after an hour of playing. I’ve used two different video cards now, and this happens regardless.

 

 

2) Sometimes the computer will just suddenly freeze. Will stop responding altogether and will presumably stay there forever. The mouse pointer frozen on the screen, no reaction from the keyboard. (haven’t actually experienced this one in a while though…)

 

3) Cannot access web pages that require some kind of security or encryption. So, no email, online banking…etc. I’ve actually found a lot of info on this and have tried every suggestion I’ve found.

 

4) The worst problem of all…when my computer restarts, it goes through this process of booting up and then restarting again midway through – sometimes it will get as far as displaying the desktop and then, click, restarting again. Of course, that’s if I’m lucky. Sometimes during this process it will get lost altogether – my monitor light will indicate no signal coming from the video card and the hard drive will eventually quit reading. I have to reset it or turn it off manually, and then the process starts again. Eventually, if I keep at it, it will finally boot up without interruption

 

 

So, there it is. Any ideas?

 

My short solution would simply be to purchase another computer. The freezing issue to me most likely sounds like a memory or ram problem. Another issue may just be your system clock along with your components, I suggest trying to obtain personal computers with integrated design strategies and of course os support. AMD systems are relatively cheap overall, and they are combined with ATI or have ati motherboards and gpu's based on amd microprocessors. AMD processors also make far better use of your ram, allowing basically double to be used I think. A simple example is a 512mb video card for such a board can be purchased for around 40$, go that times two and you have good video performance I would think.

 

You could also simply try to see if your system as such as all the latest drivers or if you have some kind of a virus problem that’s been alive to long.

 

If you buy from vendor you will get suck unless you plan to spend over a thousand dollars, building your own system can give you high performance with warranties in most cases for around 650, that’s barely more then economy model costs that have zero performance really, also you can plan your computer around upgrades and maintenance easier I think.

[timo]

I had similar problems as 1) and 2) some time ago. Although the freezing on graphics-intensive applications makes the graphics card highly suspect for being the cause I think in my case it was the processor which overheated. Take a look at your cpu (mainboard cpu) temperature.

[ParanoiA]

Thanks for the replies. Interesting too, because a friend here at work also suggested processor over heating and RAM issues.

 

To foodchain - your solution is noted. In fact, hehe...I'm planning on moving ahead with it when we get our stimulus package checks.

[tomgwyther]

I've always had old and/or falling apart computers.

As mentioned, not enough RAM; not enough processor power are the cause of most problems.

The sudden restarting or shutting down of the system are likely overheating problems.

 

having said that, a virus can do these things too, If your computer restarts over and over again, it may be due to a physical 'Gap' in the hard drive where the boot information is stored,

i.e. as your p.c boots up, it will get to the gap - get confused - then start from the begining again.

 

easiest remedy: buy a new computer, while your at it, could you buy me one too!!!

[Sayonara]

Can we take it for granted that you have done full virus and malware sweeps with up-to-date software?

[Dak]

I was about to say, 1+2+4 seem quite unrelated from 3. Some malware squats as a 'protocol handler' (i.e., anything that uses https could be going to a malitious protocol hijacker, whilst http goes to the normal http handler) and malware isn't known for being 100% reliable; hence (possibly) the non-functional https and the random restarts.

[Sayonara]

That complete lack of https services could in theory be due to a program adding a deliberately malformed line for https into the hosts file, to try and force the user to downgrade to http login pages for otherwise secure services. Only idiots like Yahoo still provide http alternatives to secure logins, but imagine the damage you could do with someone's email account.

[foodchain]

Thanks for the replies. Interesting too, because a friend here at work also suggested processor over heating and RAM issues.

 

To foodchain - your solution is noted. In fact, hehe...I'm planning on moving ahead with it when we get our stimulus package checks.

 

 

If you worry about overheating I would suggest simply removing one of the panels to your pc, one on the side of the box should help though I don’t know your layout. Also, getting parts that have heatsinks and or fans built in is a plus. Also I don’t know for sure but I think minimizing the amount of parts inside the box physically itself helps with cooling, such as instead of having two 1024mb for ram just get one 2048 stick. Also physically removing the dust from the inside of your computer can help a lot, depending on your vacuum cleaner you can get a lot done without having to use cans of compressed air.

 

Also as mentioned in my earlier post it would seem as if the AMD processor family is more accessible cost wise then intel based strategies for say gaming or home entertainment really. A hot intel board with related processor and such can itself cost over a grand. Not saying anything about intel performance here just cost. Even the most pronounced system from AMD runs at about half the cost of high end intel, yet in the real world the technology works just fine, I would imagine more so now that desktop based 64bit computing on an OS level is becoming a reality.

[ParanoiA]

Can we take it for granted that you have done full virus and malware sweeps with up-to-date software?

 

I was about to say, 1+2+4 seem quite unrelated from 3. Some malware squats as a 'protocol handler' (i.e., anything that uses https could be going to a malitious protocol hijacker, whilst http goes to the normal http handler) and malware isn't known for being 100% reliable; hence (possibly) the non-functional https and the random restarts.

 

I'm not entirely convinced of my virus and malware sweeps. But, I did download Ad-Aware and its latest definitions and found 10 infected files, mainly cookies (even though I thought I had deleted them), none of them were registry keys, if I remember correctly. After removing them, the problem seems no different. I ran the scan again to see if they were "back", but it doesn't find anything now.

 

Like I said, I'm not real sure about Ad-Aware, but that's the only free one I know of that doesn't plant its own spyware on your computer when you install it.

 

Yeah, the whole https thing is really weird. That's a brand new issue that just popped up saturday. That's the issue that finally pissed me off enough to try looking for solutions. I'm generally pretty lazy about computer mainenance. So if I'm asking questions, it's probably getting desparate.

 

That complete lack of https services could in theory be due to a program adding a deliberately malformed line for https into the hosts file, to try and force the user to downgrade to http login pages for otherwise secure services. Only idiots like Yahoo still provide http alternatives to secure logins, but imagine the damage you could do with someone's email account.

 

Any ideas how to clear such a thing? IE still shows 128-bit Cipher strength and Cryptographic services are running. I've cleared "SSL state" and reset all of my IE options to default. I even tried re-installing IE 6 SP 1 but it says my current version is newer. If I try to install IE 7, the only upgrade available (beta I think) it says it cannot verify the integrity of the setup files...I can not catch a break on this thing.

[Pangloss]

I agree this may not be a heating issue, but just to toss this out there in case it helps, a couple things you can do to check on overheating issues are temporarily boosting your air conditioning, and taking the cover off the computer and directing a fan over the opening. If that changes the situation, you'll know it's overheating.

 

I once built a system that was identical to a buddy of mine in a gaming guild who happened to live in Wisconsin. Mine kept rebooting when we played games online together, but his was always fine. One day I finally asked him, what room temperature he was at? He was keeping his thermostat at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Mine was at 75. That small difference in ambient cooling was tripping the crashes.

[Sayonara]

Like I said, I'm not real sure about Ad-Aware, but that's the only free one I know of that doesn't plant its own spyware on your computer when you install it.

Spybot Search and Destroy?

 

Any ideas how to clear such a thing?

Open the file called "hosts" (there is no extension) in notepad. You can find it in this directory:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

 

If there is an entry in there which looks like it refers to https, we may be on to a winner.

[ParanoiA]

Spybot Search and Destroy?

 

 

Open the file called "hosts" (there is no extension) in notepad. You can find it in this directory:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

 

If there is an entry in there which looks like it refers to https, we may be on to a winner.

 

Cool. I can't wait to try this. I have heard of Spybot, I'll check that one out too.

 

Downloaded and ran Spybot and it found nothing. Also opened this Hosts file and didn't see any references at all to https.

 

I did reseat my RAM modules and things seem to be more stable as the computer booted right up without any restarting interuptions. But I haven't tried running my Madden game yet, and that's usually a decent catalyst for these issues.

 

Also (you guys are gonna' laugh now) but what is that chip that's right next to the CPU? It's much smaller, but it has its own heatsink and fan - and the fan isn't spinning. I kept peaking at it and I never saw it doing anything. I'm wondering...

[Dak]

north bridge. that probably shouldn't over heat, but doesn't usually need it's own fan afaik. mind, pangloss' suggestion should cover that.

 

for future refference, AVG anti-spyware is free for scanning/removal and one of the best.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Have a peek at SpeedFan and see if it can tell you your computer's internal temperatures. (The insides will be surprisingly hot, but numbers like 50C are often indicative of problems.)

 

You may also try checking your computer's memory to see if it's damaged. Use something like Memtest86+ (you can burn it to a CD and tell the computer to boot off of it) to check to see if the memory all works.

[ParanoiA]

Hey thanks for the tips Cap'n. I actually installed Motherboard Monitor yesterday and it's showing my chip temp anywhere from 150 degrees to 180 degrees F. The "alarm" setting is at 158 F, so I'm assuming it's getting really hot.

 

My problems have doubled, though. Now my audio drivers and audio card isn't found nor working, and I haven't even looked in that direction let alone change anything. Everything has just basically fallen apart over the course of this week, so I'm really at a loss now what to do besides get a new system.

 

I know I can get a new motherboard, cpu and memory combo for what I consider to be relatively cheap - like 150 I think. And I figure I can just reuse my peripherals, unless any of them actually prove to be faulty. I just don't think my problems are with my hard drive, cd drive, network card, video card or audio card. Although I have no real intelligent reason to assume that...

 

I agree this may not be a heating issue, but just to toss this out there in case it helps, a couple things you can do to check on overheating issues are temporarily boosting your air conditioning, and taking the cover off the computer and directing a fan over the opening. If that changes the situation, you'll know it's overheating.

 

Just so you know, I did try this. In fact, the hot readings I was getting was with the case opened up and I turned off the heat in my basement. I don't know how cool it actually got, but I did notice quite a difference once I closed the case up - as in the temperature reading increased about 6 degrees almost immediately, and that became the new average. The temp only took off up to 180 degrees after I tried to view a Youtube video and it hasn't been the same since.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

180 seems rather warm. (Very, actually.)

 

This sounds like major hardware failure to me. If you haven't done so already, try to (carefully) remove any dust from inside the case and check to see that all the fans run. (When it's that hot they should be running, I'd think.)