=?Utf-8?B?Q2hhcmxlcyBDaGFybGVz?= added these comments in the
current discussion du jour ...
This is a long and bad one. Virtual Memory low was 1st error
indicated. After a while, all open windows and prrms stop
working and automatically shutdown. Restart wouldn't work so i
have to do hard reboot. Would solve problem for a little while
but same thing reoccurs .
I upgrade to 3 gigs of Ram to solve virtual memory shortage
but problem persists. Especially bad when I click out of
screen saver. Open windows are not complete and can't be
closed.
Launching Microsoft word completely freezes computer. Cannot
access that prgm anymore.
Virus?
Malware comes in far more lethal doses than a traditional virus,
but, yes, some sort of denial of service attack may have hit your
system. Do you have a HW or SW firewall, e.g., Zone Alarm? XP is
useless here, no matter what MS marketing may hype. Also, is your
malware scanning robust enough? I assume you have a good AV, e.g.
Norton, McAfee, the free one maybe ACD or some such and I assume
you have things like Ad Aware and Spy Bot Search & Destroy. If
not, both are free, try to Google for them or get them from a
friend.
If you believe you are clean, but still in deep trouble, consider
getting something stronger. When I thought I might be getting
hacked some time back I bought Computer Associate's eTrust Pest
Patrol and found it to be very comprehensive. Luckily in my case,
my fears were unfounded but you have a real problem.
If you have upgraded to 2 or more gig memory and your
pagefile.sys is properly sized and not being corrupted somehow,
there should be no VM issues unless you are doing something truly
gigantic, e.g., processing a 12 mega pixel digital camera image.
But, you've not indicated that.
So, yes, I'd agree that your next step would be to look for
malware. Be sure to set your own Restore Points, if you can,
before you run your scans, but do NOT turn off any active malware
protection whilst you scan! The reason is that if you are
infected, the malware may partially or completely shut-down or
obfuscate your system to where you do not see what you think you
do. And, if no-brains, very low memory apps such as a screen
saver or Word won't run or run ultra-slow, then you have a
serious problem.
Incidently, I am currently talking on my wife's PC. Mine has been
in the shop since last week. I was getting periodic XP Pro
restarts for no apparent reason for a week or so, Even Viewer
said it was some bullshit error 49 which translates into a
failure to write to pagefile.sys. So, my first step was a malware
scan, which of course, was clean but the problem continued. So, I
next thought it was the early October MS updates interacting with
other updates I'd done, so I rolled my system back a week and all
was well, then the problem started again. Finally, Bang! the
whole thing literally shut itself off and wouldn't restart. I
suspected perhaps a dead CPU fan and was getting ready to pull
the case when I noticed that the case above my power supply was
almost too hot to touch. After a cool down, I did manage to get
to my BIOS setup, verified that the PS seemed OK and tried to
start Windows, but it just froze, the PC again shut itself off,
only this time it would no longer even attempt to fire up.
My techie is my nephew who's a little busy running a business and
I'm not all that inconvenienced but he thinks that my power
supply slowly fell over during the week or so I had problems,
probably at least had fluctuating voltages which may have
triggered Windows thinking it couldn't write to my HD or maybe
even read/write to memory. Hopefully, I didn't kill something in
the chipset by running the thing wounded. Bottom line for you is
at this point to try to think out-of-the-box as broadly as you
can. I've been doing this stuff for awhile and never would've
suspected a dying PS. Not saying this is your problem, it may be
something as simple as bad blocks in critical systems areas of
your HD that is confusing Windows.
BTW, you didn't mention it, so I'll assume you're not seeing any
BSOD. And, if you haven't already, take a peek at Event Viewer.
If you're not familiary with it, it is in Control Panel>
Administrative Tools.
Good luck!
