Help needed with Computer/WindowsXP freeze up problem

[syberspunk]

I figured I'd post this in the Podium since it is more likely to be seen here rather than in the Oops I Broke it forum. Feel free to move it there, but I thought I'd take a stab here first and hope that some of the more knowledgeable people might be able to help out.

A few weeks or so ago, I was having a major computer meltdown problem. One day, my computer just got messed up. Totally out of the blue. First, here are the general specs of my machine:

Processor	Intel Pentium 4 2.26 GHz
Processor Speed	2.26 GHz
Installed Memory	512 MB (DDR SDRAM)
Operating System	Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Video Card	nVidia GeForce FX 5950 256MB
Boot Drive HD	Hitachi 160 GB

Now here is the problem, when my computer boots up and I choose a user account, it starts to load the desktop ok, but then while the system tray icons are loading, the taskbar seems to freeze up. Initially, while things seem to be loading up, I can click on the Start button or any of the icons on my desktop. But after a short while, the taskbar freezes up and the system tray icons may or may not finish loading. Regardless, when I hover over the taskbar, I cannot click on the Start button and all I see is the hourglass icon. I may or may not be able to click on any of the desktop icons, but the screen just ends up freezing or the program does not load.

I attempted to boot into safe mode with command prompt and run chkdsk, but nothing happens. It seems to hang.

I attempted to boot into safe mode and chkdsk from there, but again it just froze up. I rebooted into safe mode again and tried to run a virus scan with avast, but again with the freezing up.

The odd thing is, the mouse still seems functional; I can move the mouse icon around. And the keyboard is still responsive in at least I can turn the caps lock and num lock keys on and off. Of course, if I repeatedly press any of the keys on the keyboard, it eventually locks up and beeps repeatedly. *sigh*

I am at my wits end. The last time this happened, I was forced to do a complete reformat of the hard drive. I had scanned all of my drives with avast and deleted any virii or trojans it found. I just assumed that it was the hard drive that was screwy, and maybe a complete reformat would fix it. That seemed to work... but now it has happened again. So I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this. Rather than try and reformat everything yet again... I was wondering if anyone has run into this problem before and might be able to tell me definitively if the problem is:

1) Hard drive related - and maybe I should get a completely new hard drive
2) Hardware related  - and maybe my computer/motherboard or whatever is just totally fracked
3) Software related  -

Just now, I was running ZOMGPETS, I had the task manager open, I was playing a TiVO file on my desktop watching it in Windows Media Player, and I had VNC open. My computer then chose to spontaneously reboot and once I got back on, I started having the same problems as last time. I can't imagine any of these specific programs being the direct cause... unless it is related to Daemon tools? I am currently using the smaller/mini image that Argon provided so I can play the game without my CD.

The last time this happened... I had the TiVO Desktop open and I was in the middle of transferring files over from my TiVO to my computer. I had thought that maybe there was a small chance the TiVO software was responsible... but now that seems pretty unlikely and was probably just coincidence, since this time I did not have it running. *sighs again*

I'm probably grasping at straws, but I don't know what else it could be.

4) Hardware related  - could it be my graphics card somehow?
5) Virus related - could it be some virus or trojan that is sneaking past avast?

If anybody has some suggestions or advice, I would greatly appreciate it before I embark on completely reformatting again...

The next two steps I plan to take is:

1) attempt to use the last known working configuration... although that probably will just make things worse.
2) attempt to uninstall daemon tools just in case that is the problem locking up my machine.

I really don't want to have to reformat if it turns out to be something I can fix without doing so. Or wasting my time reformatting if it turns out that the hard drive might just be shitty and I would only be temporarily fixing the problem, only for it to rear its ugly fracking head around again.

Ste

[kewian]

iM not sure what the problem is but you can attempt a repair of windows before you resort to reformatting. You go into it like you would to reformat but it will give you an option to repair or reformat.  thats the one you choose not the first reformat option.  I know Im stupid but this is a better option than reformatting.

[jrd]

It is most likely a startup program like a virus scanner or antispyware.

At boot press F8, and choose diagnostic mode. This will likely barf on some DLL or service and then continue booting: note its name. If you can link it to a program, deinstall it.

Once in this mode, use Bootvis to check which program takes the longest to boot: <http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/BootVis.shtml>
Remember to stay in diag mode after the reboot while running the check.

FWIW last time I had this it was due to the kernel driver distributed with Daemon (SPTD): it conflicted with my virus scanner. I downgraded Daemon to the 3.x version (which didn't use this particular driver), and since then my system has been running without problems.

[jsalemi]

I had this happen, and it turns out that on some systems, the system loading gets screwed up because some of the system services take too long to respond on boot and keep others from loading properly.  A google search turned up the solution, though I forget exactly what I searched on.  Anyway, it has to do with the UPnP detection services taking forever to load, and the solution involves turning them off.

First, try this -- open 'My Network Places', and click on the 'Hide icons for networked UPnP devices' on the left.  Reboot, and see if that clears it up (it seems to for about 1/2 the folks who hit this).

If it doesn't solve the problem, you have to change the services to keep the UPnP services from loading automatically at startup.  Go into the Services manager (I usually just type 'services.msc' in the Run box), and change to following two items to 'Disabled' from 'Automatic':

1) SSDP Discovery Service
2) Universal Plug and Play Device Host

Having these disabled doesn't prevent any UPnP stuff from working -- it just keeps the system from searching the network for them on boot.  XP will start either of those services if it ever needs them while running.

Give this a try and see if it works for you.

[jrd]

Don't disable those services if you need UPnP, just place them on manual.

A much easier way to disable unneeded UPnP is to use the windows components wizard -- under 'networking services' unselect 'UPnP User Interface' (if selected).

[jsalemi]

Sorry, Jordi, but I have to disagree -- just putting them on manual doesn't solve it entirely.  You have to disable them, which is the consensus in every web article I read about the problem, and what I found to be the case..  And they don't disable UPnP -- it still works fine.  They just keep the system from searching for UPnP devices at boot time. An application that goes out to look for a UPnP device still works just fine.

[jrd]

You don't HAVE to disable them. There's tons of FUD about UPnP going about, mostly because of Steve Gibson. Actual problems in a patched SP2? None.

People foolishly disabling UPnP and then wondering why they can't get past their router anymore are thirteen a dozen.

For a good laugh, read http://www.grc.com/UnPnP/UnPnP.htm
Gibson's UnPnP is a fast way to toggle the UPnP services by the way, if you want to be unnecessarily paranoid anyway.

[jsalemi]

You don't HAVE to disable them. There's tons of FUD about UPnP going about, mostly because of Steve Gibson. Actual problems in a patched SP2? None.

I think we're talking about two different things.  Disabling these two services does NOT diable UPnP -- it just stops Windows from actively going out and searching for them on boot-up.  I have patched SP2, and continued to have the problems Ste describes, both on my desktop and laptop, and only disabling them prevents this particular problem. UPnP itself still works fine -- I have no problems what-so-ever getting out of my DSL routers, nor do I have problems  with UPnP applications working (i.e., Limewire).


I never even heard of what Steve Gibson said about it.  I searched for this particular problem, and this was the cure. And for the record, I've been supporting PCs for 20+ years, so I'm not inclined to listen to FUD. For this particular problem, this is the solution.  YMMV.

[syberspunk]

@jordi:
I've booted into safe mode a few times, and I notice I get a message at the bottom of the screen saying to press 'Esc' to cancel loading  SPTD.sys so I did this time. At first, I thought this might have been a clue. I opened the control panel and tried to use the Add/Remove Programs to see if I could uninstall Daemon Tools, but it was not listed there. I went to the Daemon Tools folder in my Program Files folder, and when I tried to click on the uninstall icon, it complained that it could not verify a valid installation or whatever. I then tried to open msconfig and I'm pretty sure the screen froze again.

Whatever the case, I rebooted back into safe mode. And this time I was able to click on the uninstall icon without the error message, but nothing happened. The mouse icon turned into a hourglass briefly, but it didn't seem to uninstall anything. Again, daemon tools still was not listed under the add/remove programs options. I did manage to get msconfig to open, and I tried to disable the service from there, but I think my machine froze again. I had to reboot, and I then I tried disabling the services that jsalemi mentioned...


@jsalemi:
I tried disabling both of the services that you listed above, and when I booted normally into Windows, my desktop still eventually froze up. The system tray did not finish loading icons.

Incidentally... when I looked at the services options, they were already set on manual... so I just chose to disable them. No dice.


So after those few things, I went back into safe mode, and tried to see if there were any other services or system tray things that I could disable and then I saw that daemon tools was still checked. I could have sworn that I unchecked it, but perhaps because it may have frozen last time that I tried, it didn't actually take effect. So... now I tried to just use diagnostic mode and disable all of those extra services and I am in the middle of trying to reboot. It seems to be stuck on the Windows is shutting down screen and it has been hanging there for well over 10-15 minutes. Ugh. I will hop in the shower and give it a bit more time before I lose patience and try and restart manually.

If it makes any difference, the most recent programs that I installed were:

utorrent (the latest version I think 1.6?)
SimPE (the latest 0.60 version - the "public" release, it is NOT a Q/A version)
Nero 6.0 (I previously had 5.5 because that was the only version I could find at the time, and I couldn't find the 6.0 version disc that came with my Sony DVD/CD burner. I finally got a copy from the hubby. I needed the 6.0 version to recognize my DVD burner because for some reason, the 5.5 version wouldn't)

And finally, not that I really think it would be the source of the problem... but I upgraded to the latest release of ACR 3.0 or whatever. I only mention it because I think someone just posted that they were having problems, and there have been times where some people experienced random rebooting/crash to desktop after installing ACR. My computer seemed to crash last night while I was loading ZOMGPETZ after having updated to the latest ACR. It may have caused a crash... but it doesn't explain why I am now having Windows freeze up problems... unless it could have royally corrupted something due to daemon tools?

It has been another 10ish minutes while I was composing this an Windows still has not shut down. It doesn't seem completely frozen tho' because I can still move the mouse and turn the caps lock and num lock buttons on and off with my keyboard. *sigh*

* syberspunk jumps in the shower for now.

Ste

[jrd]

Uninstalling Daemon tools does not always uninstall the driver…

You can download the stpd installer separately from the Daemon site, and uninstall it with ‘sptdinst_x86.exe remove’ from a commandline.

By the way, safe mode is not the same as diagnostic mode. Do you have XP Home or something? I know it's present in Pro and Corporate versions.

[syberspunk]

Yeah, I think I have the Home version.

I couldn't even uninstall daemon tools yet. I guess I can try going into safe mode with networking and see if I can get to the website, download the sptdinst file and uninstall it...

Btw, I am getting to safe mode via the F8 option. I know that the diagnostic mode is different. It was an option selected through the msconfig screen. I was attempting to see if I could boot into windows "normally" by disabling all the other system tray services and what not since that "appears" to be what the computer is hanging on...

I thought that maybe disabling daemon tools might do the trick, but it seems I cannot do it because the computer hangs everytime I try to apply these options and reboot. I just checked my desktop now and it was still on the shutting down screen. Anyways, I'm off to my parents place for the weekend. I'm bringing my desktop with me and I'll have to work on it later this evening.

Ste

[jsalemi]

Ah, well -- sorry it didn't help.  The problem you were having sounded so similar to what I had (system tray icons not appearing, taskbar freezing, eventually whole system freezing and/or crashing) that I thought it might be the same thing.  Good luck fixing it, and if you do, let us know what it was.

[jrd]

One thing that does work under safe mode is USB, so if you can get access to another PC, just get the STPD on a stick and transfer it to your borked PC.

Safe mode with networking IIRC does not allow you to web browse.

[syberspunk]

Ok... don't care if this is necromancy or not... nyah But... my computer seems fairly stable now, for the past week or so *knocks on wood* 

I now suspect that the problem was a software problem and that it probably points to daemontools. Especially since it appeared to be freezing up everytime the system tray icons were supposed to load up, which included daemontools. I am currently living without it... for now... because I actually have 3 drives in my computer (A CD-RW, a DVD ROM, and a DVD/CD-RW). So, I can still run the game fine and have two other drives to play music or what not. Yet, I kind of miss not needing the CD to play my game.

I'm not like 100% sure it was daemontools, but it seems to be the most likely suspect. So experts, I'm wondering... is it really the latest version of daemontools that's the problem? I think I updated to 4.06 last time I used it... prior to ZOMGPETZ, I was using 4.03 for quite a while and I did not have problems. Could it have been 4.06 that was crappity? Or is it really STPD that was crappity?

It seems like there is a newer version out now... 4.08. Should I take a chance and get 4.08? Should I install it and then remove the STPD right away? Is STPD even needed? Or should I downgrade to the 3.x version?

Anyone else using 4.x version of daemontools with WinXP? If so, do you have the latest one without problems?

Ideally, I would like to use daemontools again... and I might be willing to risk having to reformat all over again but if I can avoid that, I would prefer to.

Ste

[jrd]

Daemon 4 is crappy. Or rather, SPTD is conflicting with a lot of security software and system drivers.

I have tried 4.08, and it won't work on my system. I had to go through the kernel debugging again to disabled SPTD.

I use Daemon 3 now.

[twojeffs]

I've been using 4.03 for quite awhile with few problems, although the one I do have is probably related to the issues Syber was having. The system tray icon never actually loads to the tray unless I forcibly run the .exe, even though the program is running and works just fine with whatever I last had mounted. I've never had any of the crashes like Syber though, just that minor inconvienence that I can live with. I don't think I'll be upgrading it anytime soon either.