Windows is unstable

[Andrew]

So I got a new computer that has win XP pro (or media center edition).

My problem is that usually about once a day, it kinda crashes.

So I'm browsing the internet, and I close Firefox. Then I want to reopen it, whether it is now or 10 hours from now. When I try to open it it doesn't open but a firefox process is in the process menu and is 4mb. I can try to open firefox lots of times but it creates multiple firefox processes. I can delete all the processes but the original. If I try to open any other program it does not open, it just sits in the process area and does nothing. This happens with firefox, process explorer, and about 15 other programs I have. When this happens it makes it impossible to shutdown the computer and I have to manually press the power button.

This can happen without me noticing firefox not opening, although that is how I notice it occur 90% of the time.

I have disable lots of startup programs and processes in msconfig, so I am unsure if having one of them disabled causes this.

Attached is hijack this info.

Sorry about not having much info, but there is not much to give. For example, I left my computer on last night seeding torrents, and when I got up this morning the first thing I did was try to open firefox and it would not open. I had to manually reboot computer. It happens when I leave computer unattended, and even when I am regularly using it.

This happens once every day or two, or even twice a day.

EDIT:

It happened again. I was playing a game, then stopped playing it and I tried to open firefox. It wouldn't open so I thought I'd open windows explorer, but that didn't open and it froze my taskbar/systray and I couldn't click on anything there.

hijackthis.txt

[thesnake]

if you got a new PC why not format it and install ure own fresh genuine winxp  os..

if it was software problem it should go awy..

and of your pc is crashing because of hardware problems then it wont go away but at least

u will know...

  never trust other os if u didn't install them ure self...and why you want to fix the os

and have all the problems u don't know about?? i mean u don't know whats in it..

just delete the hole thing

[Andrew]

Huh? It came preloaded with Windows XP Professional. And it is genuine windows. Of course it came shipped with acer's crap software, but there is nothing I can do about that. I did install the OS myself. The computer/OS was never on before I bought it.

Attached is dxdiag.

DxDiagandrew.txt

[veK]

still it had windows preinstalled and that pretty much sucks in my experience.

so format the pc and put windows and the apps on again. much faster than looking for errors...

[Andrew]

Huh? It would be the exact same as before.

It came preinstalled, but I had to setup username, password, timezone etc then it installed like it would if I put the Acer windows install dvd's back in (which were created from the backup partition of hard drive).

Then I'd have to uninstall all the crap software that came with it, disable a lot of startup programs and services.

Maybe one by one I'll enable the services I disabled and see if that is the problem.

I don't want to format my computer every month :P

[veK]

you don't use any of that bundled crap at all. just install an usual win xp...

all you want is the key, the software is available everywhere, an unique and genuine serial key is what you want.

so format all, install own xp, be happy :)

[Andrew]

Peerguardian crashed, it has done this before, but not very often (maybe ever 4th day)

I tried installing beta c but the installer crashes and wont go away.

And then windows crashed like it always does. Gonna uninstall peerguardian and see if that is the problem.

Yah I was told that the default windows is much better than the ones sent out with manufacturers. Will look into that.

[Kiyouta]

So I'm browsing the internet, and I close Firefox.

There's your problem; right there! I think FIREFOX is unstable.

[Andrew]

But I was browsing with firefox today and I noticed peerguardian crash. I tried opening certain programs and they wouldn't open. But firefox was still operating normally, and I could browse with it. Of course when I closed firefox, I was unable to open it again.

[stefanhendriks]

First of all. Firefox rules, period.

Anyway. My experience with Acer (i have a laptop here from Acer)... just format it and reinstall an own copy of Windows with the KEY you got from them. I also tried reinstalling stuff and such. Its just super unstable.

The funny thing is, if you use the image you have to burn at start, your computer is just like you bought it. But even then its not stable. After removing some Acer crap, all hell breaks loose.

I know it aint pretty, but get a copy of Windows (the original one) somehow, and install with your cd key. Then download manually the drivers and ONLY install those you really need. Not the same power crap and widget stuff. After that, it runs like a charm.

[Andrew]

It froze again with peerguardian uninstalled.

I'm going on an uninstall rampage getting rid of everything not needed or I havn't used since I got my computer.

Maybe that will help. Mostly acer and intel software.

EDIT:

Well that didn't go over too well. Now windows asks to search/install drivers for something every time I boot computer. It is unable to find drivers so I guess this is why it keeps asking. I disabled the hardware in device manager, but that didn't work so I uninstalled(removed it) it. It was some windows modem help thing that told me to remove the hardware after I uninstalled the software from add/remove programs.

I now only have 5 things in startup in msconfig.

Hopefully this fixes any problems :D

EDIT:

Hmm, it still asks for driver on startup. I only need to press cancel and it goes away. Since I don't reboot my computer often (unles it screws up) this isn't a big problem at the moment. As long as the freezing bug is solved, I'll be happy.

EDIT:

Argh, it just froze again. This time I noticed it when I went to open a microsoft publisher file and microsoft publisher froze on startup (I can not kill the process).

Guess I'll format it sometime and install clean windows.

So last night I turned on my computer, started utorrent and then went to bed. This morning I tried to start firefox and it wouldn't. Must be some idle thing or it occurs after so much time.

[gryphon]

Like Stefan mentioned. Reinstall with a clean Windows disk and not the Acer one.

[Andrew]

wow. I can't seem to successfully boot from DVD rom.

I burnt memtest onto cd-rw to check out my memory. Just got 1024 nonstop after selecting to boot from dvd-rom

I also tried ubuntu. it gets to the install/memtest option page, but I tried selecting install/start  and memtest, but both brought up blank screens.

Do I need to burn linux/ubuntu/memtest onto dvds? Does it not work with compact discs?

There is no boot menu in the BIOS. When the computer starts I get an acer screen that says delete for BIOS and F12 for boot order.

EDIT:

Very weird. I booted computer, it froze less than 20 minutes after starting, so I left it running over night. Tried opening firefox in the morning and it opened fine.

[Nuvollari]

Hmmm..go in bios.and you gonna see there an option...Booting device default and you put the dvd rom as default.that should work.good luck

[Andrew]

I tried out the beta of Ubuntu today and that cd actually booted into Ubuntu nicely. Ubuntu 7.04 is looking to be really nice. Ran really good for being used from a cd. Ubuntu final comes out on the 19th :D

Sadly DSL still wont boot (updated to 3.3), it tries and loads drivers but then says it cant start knoppix and stops loading.

I tried setting dvd rom to default boot in the bios, but it still booted to HD first, I still have to press F12 when computer boots to select whether to boot to HD or DVD (it auto goes to HD if I don't press F11).