Please help me, before I shoot myself :)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skip2Maloo
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Skip2Maloo

IBM NetVista 2254G23 / P3 1.2 gHz
512 MB RAM
XP Home
Dual Monitor / Video Card: Intel 80810e / ATI Radeon 7200, 32 megs each
blah blah blah...

First, the symptoms, which only just appeared about 10 days ago:

#1) In MSIE 6 or Netscape 7, certain pages will lock up my entire system and
I have to power down to reboot. Specifically, http://www.comcast.net/ (my
broadband provider) locks it up 99% of the time. I think there's a Flash
thing on there but http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about/ works
just fine, as do many other Flash sites. The jpeg/gif images load ok, but as
soon as that video starts to download, kaboom. On a hunch, I went to
www.pcpitstop.com and ran some of the memory / video tests, but my machine
locked up half way through them.

#2) In Photoshop 7, selecting a section of an image and trying to rotate it
locks up my entire system, just like problem #1. It doesn't matter how large
the image file is or whether it has layers. Oddly enough, the problem
doesn't happen in ImageReady or Illustrator 10.

#3) In Windows Explorer, right-clicking on the A: drive icon locks up my
system too, but only about half the time. It doesn't matter whether or not a
disc is in the drive.

My instincts tell me this is one problem, not 3 separate ones, all related
to the video card(s) somehow. I have installed the latest version of every
driver I could find: mouse, keyboard, video cards, hard drives, CD drives,
printers, scanners, tablets, chipsets, modems, etc. All my software is as up
to date as it can get, including XP.

I've uninstalled / reinstalled both video cards and they're respective
drivers, testing each configuration for the problem. It happens every time,
no matter which card is installed or which drivers are loaded.

The only other idea I had is that it might be some kind of conflict: memory,
IRQ, DMA... something. System Information reports 2 conflicts / sharing:

I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI Bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI Bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF RADEON 7200 SERIES

I don't know that much about these types of conflicts, but it seems too
coincidental that the problem I'm having is probably tied to hardware listed
in the conflicts section. I edited the BIOS to let XP set the interrupts and
addresses but it didn't help. I don't have access to changing the addresses
manually in XP (option is grayed out) and I don't know how else to do it or
whether it would help or not.

Basically, I've been dealing with this for almost 2 weeks and it's driving
me crazy. I'm stumped, I have no idea what else to try or where else to
turn. I doubt anyone could actually diagnose my machine based solely on
these ramblings, but if someone could point me in a direction... ANY
direction... of what I should try next, I would greatly appreciate it.

Otherwise, I can always format / reinstall the whole thing and hope for the
best, or there is this REALLY nice Dell I've had my eye on for a while
now... :)

Thanks in advance,

SkipReilley space at space skip2maloo space dot space com
 
First, try the system with only 1 of the video cards installed. If all is
OK, switch to the other and test again. If there are no crashes with either
card when only one is installed, that will reveal the cause of the problem
and help towards finding a solution. If it still crashes with either card,
then the problem could be realated to your PC's own memory. Try swapping it
out for another stick. If it only crashes with one of the cards, swap the
card for another one and try again...

The port sharing is a red-herring as modern computers as designed to share
resources in this way. You can disable this in the BIOS by disabling ACPI,
but then you would have to do a repair installation in Windows to update the
motherboard drives and you'll lose the software power off function...

Lorne
 
I would check to make sure you don't have a virus or "spyware" on your
machine I just fixed a friend they had over 300 registry entries and 14
folders of the stuff. Computer was running really slow....


I like adaware myself

Also you forgot to mention if you had changed ANYTHING on your system before
this started?
if you might have go to a restore point prior to this starting and you are
all fixed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wayne
 
Lorne Smith said:
First, try the system with only 1 of the video cards installed. If all is
OK, switch to the other and test again. If there are no crashes with either
card when only one is installed, that will reveal the cause of the problem
and help towards finding a solution. If it still crashes with either card,
then the problem could be realated to your PC's own memory. Try swapping it
out for another stick. If it only crashes with one of the cards, swap the
card for another one and try again...
Click to expand...

I have already tried removing / uninstalling / reinstalling / disabling /
enabling both cards in a variety of configurations. That's what made me
think it must be some kind of conflict.
The port sharing is a red-herring as modern computers as designed to share
resources in this way. You can disable this in the BIOS by disabling ACPI,
but then you would have to do a repair installation in Windows to update the
motherboard drives and you'll lose the software power off function...

Lorne
Click to expand...

I was wondering about this. I had read some generalized comments that
suggested resources are normally shared this way, but I couldn't find
anything more specific. Thank you for clearing it up for me.

I have run extensive memory tests using the IBM Advanced Diagnostics tool.
It took nearly 2 hours for it to run the "complete" memory test, but
everything passed. I suppose the problem could be some kind of intermittent
problem, so I think I'll try your idea of swapping out the sticks. Heck, at
this point I'll try anything.

Thank you Lorne for your response!
 
wayne said:
I would check to make sure you don't have a virus or "spyware" on your
machine I just fixed a friend they had over 300 registry entries and 14
folders of the stuff. Computer was running really slow....
Click to expand...

I run Adaware religiously, and my anti-virus updates daily and runs in the
background. I know what you're thinking next, but I tried disabling the
antivirus and my fire wall just to see, but it didn't help.
Also you forgot to mention if you had changed ANYTHING on your system before
this started?
if you might have go to a restore point prior to this starting and you are
all fixed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wayne
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the thing... I'm always changing something. I figure it's
probably some tweak I did somewhere. But I've undone all the tweaks I can
remember and System Restore doesn't let me go back far enough to fix the
problem.

I appreciate your time and effort, Wayne. Thank you.
 
I thought I had covered all the bases by running a half dozen intensive
memory tests. But by following your swap out suggestion I found that I do in
fact have a bad memory stick. So much for "thorough diagnostics".

You can't imagine the relief I feel just to know the problem is solved. My
wife is just as relieved as I am, now I don't have to buy that new Dell
after all. Hey wait a minute... I just screwed myself out of a new computer!
:)

Thanks so much for all you help.

Skip
news:[email protected]...
Click to expand...

If it still crashes with either card,
Click to expand...

<<snipped>>
 
It's a pleasure, I'm glad you have resolved the issue. It just goes to show
that these "diagnostic" tools cannot always find a problem and if you
suspect a fault somewhere, it's a good idea to at least try to swap
hardware...

Lorne
 
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