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WarKirby Magojiro · 09-28-2008, 05:34 AM

Anyone who's read my last few threads on the subject, might be aware I've been struggling with some deep and mysterious issues in my PC for a long time. Eventually, it culminated in doing a complete system wipe, and reinstalling windows.

That seemed to fix every problem I had, including bluescreen errors with the video card and such. It's been about 2-3 months since the wipe, and things are starting to degrade again.

I'm now experiencing a suite of entirely different, but no less frustrating issues with my PC.

I'm hoping you all might be able to shed some light on them.

----------------------------------

Firstly, occasionally, when there is network activity. I get the error that "generic host process for win32 services has stopped working"

When this happens, my internet connection goes dead immediately, and if I attempt to reconnect, my modem reads as disconnected. With some poking, unplugging and replugging, I can make my internet work again, though it seems to disconnect and reconnect periodically after that. In addition, following the above error, I sometimes get odd graphical errors in games, like all textures and shaders ceasing to function in KOTOR II. (this may or may not be related)

Restarting my PC fixes this problem, until it happens again. There doesn't seem to be a discernible pattern to it, except that the error only occurs when my PC is doing internet stuff. If I leave the internet disconnected, it never happens. It's not too common, sometimes I can go an entire day without seeing it, sometimes it happens instantly when connecting to the internet.

-------------------------------

Secondly, a farther network related problem. Although this sometimes occurs shortly after the above mentioned error, I've seen it happen without, too. This only happens when I'm running bit torrent.

Basically, my internet connection seems to only half work. There's no immediate warning of this happening, bit torrent functions fine, but for some reason, web pages refuse to load. Not that they're slow because bittorrent is using bandwidth, but that they stop loading, completely. Firefox gets to "waiting for <url>" and never past that. This problem persists even after I turn bittorrent off. (and ensure no bittorrent processes are running)

However, I don't think this is actually a problem with my connection, but with firefox. If I close firefox, and try to restart it, it gives the error "Firefox is already running, but not responding. If this error persists, restart your computer," etc. And sure enough, there's a firefox process stuck in the process manager, even when it's closed and there's no visible sign of it. Killing this process, and starting firefox again, makes everything work just fine. Perhaps some incompatibility between these programs? I'd happily use a different torrent client if someone has recommendations.

When the above happens, though, it seems to cause some problem in windows. When I shut windows down after a session in which the above has occured, it often fails at the "saving your settings" screen, and just sticks there forever until I force poweroff. Or, sometimes it manages that just fine, but then gets stuck the next time it tries to start windows.

Poweroff and on fixes this, but it's frustrating, and one of the two happens with alarming consistency when the firefox problem occurs.

---------------------

Third and most severe problem, I found while attempting to fix the first. When I searched for the "generic process for win32 services" message in google, I got various suggestions, but the most prominent one seemed to be something to do with windows xp updates. At that point, I notices I'm running on service pack 2, having not really updated windows since installing it.

So I did the most logical thing, and installed SP3... or tried to. Halfway through installation, for no discernible reason, my pc just stopped. Everything simply ceased to function. Mouse pointer wouldn't move, nothing responds, etc. ctrl+alt+delete did nothing. I had no option but to force powerdown via the switch. Then it took a while to undo the half done installation of SP3. That was yesterday. haven't gotten around to reattempting installation yet.

Moving onto today, less than an hour ago, I was watching an anime in VLC media player. At one point, it stuttered for a sec, and then my PC locked up once more, in the exact same manner as during the SP3 installation. again, no option but to poweroff.

Most alarming of all, however, is that when I restarted the PC after that, it failed. "Boot disk failure. Please insert the system disk" Another poweroff/on made it work though.

==================

All of these problems are entirely new, having never seen them before the reinstall of windows, though thankfully, I'm not seeing bluescreen crashes or videocard failures so far either.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to what any of these might be, and how to go about fixing any/all of them ?

Aodhan McDunnough · 09-28-2008, 05:43 AM

Problem really bad. What I'd do is narrow down the search zone. If you can, do whichever of these you're ok with doing. Don't do them in one go.

* Remove your RAM. Put the RAM cards back in one at a time, do a thorough (preferably a few hours or days) test before you put the next one in. Defective RAM has taken out my system (twice already).

* Install from someone esle's Windows CD. Find one as identical to the one you have. We need to eliminate the possibility that it's your CD that's bad.

* Use a good and similarly installed hard drive.

If the behavior doesn't change it might be motherboard related already.

WarKirby Magojiro · 09-28-2008, 06:31 AM

Hmm, some additional notes

I've tested before (though not for days at a time) with one of each of my 4 memory sticks. The Pc starts fine with any one of the four, I know that much, and seems to run alright. I've also left memtest86 running overnight before, and that turned up no errors.

The windows CD is new, I lost the original one that came with my PC, and bought a new, sealed OEM windows XP professional from amazon. (I actually had XP home originally)

Also, I was wrong about these problems being entirely new, actually. The freezing up thing, I did have before. It was one of the last major issues before I wiped the system drive. It was caused by the video card.

Quick recap of my vid card situation. Skip this if you've read it before in my other threads.

--------------------------------------------------

I got a radeon x1800 with my PC originally, and it worked without problems. I eventually upgraded to an Nvidia 8800 GTS 512, but that brought problems including, among others, bluescreen crashes, and towards the end, it stopped working altogether, and the device wouldn't start.

Eventually, I switched back to the old video card, which made it useable again, but eventually, this freezing problem started to occur. Wherein the PC freezes and can't respond. It's possible the PC is actually still working away, and the video card merely isn't refreshing the screen anymore.

This problem started to occur more and more frequently, until it was eventually happening almost immediately after startup, thus making the PC unuseable. From that point, switching back to the 8800 GTS made the pc work again, and the freezing problem stopped. But it still didn't actually work as an advanced video card either, due to not being able to start, apparently. That was the point when I decided to reinstall windows.

--------------------------------------

Back to now, I'm currently using the 8800 GTS, which started working perfectly and to full funtionality, after reinstalling windows, and has worked perfectly since. So I'm now getting this freezing problem on this card, though thankfully nowhere near as freqent as it was, for now at least.

Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make here, is that I'm fairly confident (though not 100%) that the freezing issue is somehow video related, and not a bad install/memory/HD failure, though clearly not confined to any particular video card.

Aodhan McDunnough · 09-28-2008, 07:47 AM

Sounds like it's related to the vid.

Can't help in that sector since I have no familarity with the behavior of the 8s. My vid card is a 6600, and SL generally has been rock stable (believe it or not) on my desktop unit.

Still thinking where else to look.

Beezle Warburton · 09-28-2008, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarKirby Magojiro

Hmm, some additional notes

I've tested before (though not for days at a time) with one of each of my 4 memory sticks. The Pc starts fine with any one of the four, I know that much, and seems to run alright. I've also left memtest86 running overnight before, and that turned up no errors.

The windows CD is new, I lost the original one that came with my PC, and bought a new, sealed OEM windows XP professional from amazon. (I actually had XP home originally)

Also, I was wrong about these problems being entirely new, actually. The freezing up thing, I did have before. It was one of the last major issues before I wiped the system drive. It was caused by the video card.

Quick recap of my vid card situation. Skip this if you've read it before in my other threads.

--------------------------------------------------

I got a radeon x1800 with my PC originally, and it worked without problems. I eventually upgraded to an Nvidia 8800 GTS 512, but that brought problems including, among others, bluescreen crashes, and towards the end, it stopped working altogether, and the device wouldn't start.

Eventually, I switched back to the old video card, which made it useable again, but eventually, this freezing problem started to occur. Wherein the PC freezes and can't respond. It's possible the PC is actually still working away, and the video card merely isn't refreshing the screen anymore.

This problem started to occur more and more frequently, until it was eventually happening almost immediately after startup, thus making the PC unuseable. From that point, switching back to the 8800 GTS made the pc work again, and the freezing problem stopped. But it still didn't actually work as an advanced video card either, due to not being able to start, apparently. That was the point when I decided to reinstall windows.

--------------------------------------

Back to now, I'm currently using the 8800 GTS, which started working perfectly and to full funtionality, after reinstalling windows, and has worked perfectly since. So I'm now getting this freezing problem on this card, though thankfully nowhere near as freqent as it was, for now at least.

Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make here, is that I'm fairly confident (though not 100%) that the freezing issue is somehow video related, and not a bad install/memory/HD failure, though clearly not confined to any particular video card.

Are you sure it's not a flaky power supply?

Sobriquet Kryakutnoy · 09-29-2008, 02:09 PM

Sounds a lot like inconsistent/insufficient power to me. Would be the first thing I check, followed by the HDD.

I also had some issues similar to this once that had to do with a flaky IDE bus on my motherboard. Every now and then a HD write operation would just send the whole thing into a tailspin. May be something to consider.

FlipperPA Peregrine · 09-29-2008, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarKirby Magojiro

Firstly, occasionally, when there is network activity. I get the error that "generic host process for win32 services has stopped working"

Oddly enough, I used to get this error. It was from using non-standard nVidia drivers, and them conflicting with the windows power settings. Once the host process for services goes down, so does everything that relies on it (like networking). Are you using non-standard nVidia drivers by any chance?

Regards,

-Flip

WarKirby Magojiro · 09-30-2008, 04:54 AM

Ouch.

I think I've solved the freezing problem, anyways. I got another crash/freeze last night, and this time, it didn't come back. After 10 attempts of getting boot failure, I looked in the bios, and found that for whatever reason, no sata devices were detected, ie, both hard drives.

I've fixed it by replacing the motherboard. Luckily, I had a spare unopened one right here, from previous troubles

I've only just got it working again (less than 10 minutes before this post), but I suspect the freezing issue won't be happening anymore

@Flip: No, I'm not. I downloaded the newest drivers from nvidia as soon as I got my PC working after the last windows reinstall.

Aodhan McDunnough · 09-30-2008, 05:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarKirby Magojiro

Ouch.

I think I've solved the freezing problem, anyways. I got another crash/freeze last night, and this time, it didn't come back. After 10 attempts of getting boot failure, I looked in the bios, and found that for whatever reason, no sata devices were detected, ie, both hard drives.

I've fixed it by replacing the motherboard. Luckily, I had a spare unopened one right here, from previous troubles

I've only just got it working again (less than 10 minutes before this post), but I suspect the freezing issue won't be happening anymore

@Flip: No, I'm not. I downloaded the newest drivers from nvidia as soon as I got my PC working after the last windows reinstall.

Yeah, I was afraid it was the motherboard given how unrelated the symptoms and the triggers were.

09-28-2008, 05:43 AM	#2 (permalink)
Aodhan McDunnough exp(ln(Gearhead)) lim as x->0 of Geek/x Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Philippines Posts: 3,712 Beer Tapper Gone Wild Champion! SL Join Date: March 28, 2006 Business: Aodhan's Forge SLShopper Ads: 2 My Mood:	Problem really bad. What I'd do is narrow down the search zone. If you can, do whichever of these you're ok with doing. Don't do them in one go. * Remove your RAM. Put the RAM cards back in one at a time, do a thorough (preferably a few hours or days) test before you put the next one in. Defective RAM has taken out my system (twice already). * Install from someone esle's Windows CD. Find one as identical to the one you have. We need to eliminate the possibility that it's your CD that's bad. * Use a good and similarly installed hard drive. If the behavior doesn't change it might be motherboard related already. __________________ We can't get rid of Landbots but we can stop the damage. VOTE this proposal on the Jira. Current votes: 71 http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2905 Kontours Classic 1-prim chair. Sculpted, menu controlled http://www.sluniverse.com/php/shop/s...ct=786&cat=500

09-28-2008, 06:31 AM	#3 (permalink)
WarKirby Magojiro Doing stuff Made new armor ^^ Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 2,603 SL Join Date: 14/10/2006 Business: MagoTek Industries SLShopper Ads: 1 My Mood:	Hmm, some additional notes I've tested before (though not for days at a time) with one of each of my 4 memory sticks. The Pc starts fine with any one of the four, I know that much, and seems to run alright. I've also left memtest86 running overnight before, and that turned up no errors. The windows CD is new, I lost the original one that came with my PC, and bought a new, sealed OEM windows XP professional from amazon. (I actually had XP home originally) Also, I was wrong about these problems being entirely new, actually. The freezing up thing, I did have before. It was one of the last major issues before I wiped the system drive. It was caused by the video card. Quick recap of my vid card situation. Skip this if you've read it before in my other threads. -------------------------------------------------- I got a radeon x1800 with my PC originally, and it worked without problems. I eventually upgraded to an Nvidia 8800 GTS 512, but that brought problems including, among others, bluescreen crashes, and towards the end, it stopped working altogether, and the device wouldn't start. Eventually, I switched back to the old video card, which made it useable again, but eventually, this freezing problem started to occur. Wherein the PC freezes and can't respond. It's possible the PC is actually still working away, and the video card merely isn't refreshing the screen anymore. This problem started to occur more and more frequently, until it was eventually happening almost immediately after startup, thus making the PC unuseable. From that point, switching back to the 8800 GTS made the pc work again, and the freezing problem stopped. But it still didn't actually work as an advanced video card either, due to not being able to start, apparently. That was the point when I decided to reinstall windows. -------------------------------------- Back to now, I'm currently using the 8800 GTS, which started working perfectly and to full funtionality, after reinstalling windows, and has worked perfectly since. So I'm now getting this freezing problem on this card, though thankfully nowhere near as freqent as it was, for now at least. Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make here, is that I'm fairly confident (though not 100%) that the freezing issue is somehow video related, and not a bad install/memory/HD failure, though clearly not confined to any particular video card. Last edited by WarKirby Magojiro; 09-28-2008 at 06:37 AM..

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09-28-2008, 07:47 AM	#4 (permalink)
Aodhan McDunnough exp(ln(Gearhead)) lim as x->0 of Geek/x Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Philippines Posts: 3,712 Beer Tapper Gone Wild Champion! SL Join Date: March 28, 2006 Business: Aodhan's Forge SLShopper Ads: 2 My Mood:	Sounds like it's related to the vid. Can't help in that sector since I have no familarity with the behavior of the 8s. My vid card is a 6600, and SL generally has been rock stable (believe it or not) on my desktop unit. Still thinking where else to look.

09-30-2008, 04:54 AM	#8 (permalink)
WarKirby Magojiro Doing stuff Made new armor ^^ Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 2,603 SL Join Date: 14/10/2006 Business: MagoTek Industries SLShopper Ads: 1 My Mood:	Ouch. I think I've solved the freezing problem, anyways. I got another crash/freeze last night, and this time, it didn't come back. After 10 attempts of getting boot failure, I looked in the bios, and found that for whatever reason, no sata devices were detected, ie, both hard drives. I've fixed it by replacing the motherboard. Luckily, I had a spare unopened one right here, from previous troubles I've only just got it working again (less than 10 minutes before this post), but I suspect the freezing issue won't be happening anymore @Flip: No, I'm not. I downloaded the newest drivers from nvidia as soon as I got my PC working after the last windows reinstall.