Mysterious computer problem, need help!

Ok so currently my computer is unworkable, here are the symptoms.


*Windows loads fine, however at login the hourglass sits there for a good minute, even though there is nothing to load. The hourglass stops for about 10 seconds then comes on again for another 20 seconds or so. There is no harddrive activity that I can see.

*Anytime I go to run a program (like windows explorer or run - browse - ack! stuck again) the system appears to hang. I have to kill off the process to get it to normalize again.

*I am able to run other programs like IE, but others just won't load properly.

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Things I've done recently.....

1.) Loaded a support patch for viewsonic monitors from MS site.

2.) Loaded a beta program I'm doing testing on for MS, which funnily enough all this started happening after I loaded it. Doesn't mean that it's the problem though. It has caused me to
reset my machine quite a few times (20 or so) but
not too much.

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Now how should I go about fixing this? I'm really not sure what direction to go in determining what the problem is. I'm guessing it's either the OS is corrupted (first guess), the harddrive has got bad sectors or something causing it the software to act up (second choice), the memory has gone bad and is flaking out (last choice).

I'm scared to start messing with the OS though since that would cause me to have to reload every single driver back onto the system. I WOULD scan the harddrive but I can't get Norton Utlities to function. So what do I do?!

What is this program you are testing for Microsoft? Since it happened after you installed then that try removing it and seeing how your computer runs. A bad operating system might also be to blame.

Ascheron's Call 2 beta.

Only problem is that my system locks up everytime I try to run an install. The system has been running fine for 3 months till this incident, so I'm guessing something in the OS was corrupted.
I'll probably keep trying to uninstall that program and see if I can get lucky and it will work but I doubt it very much.

Had the same problem when i loaded omega drivers for my radeon 7500. The machine would load up and just sit at the windows login screen for what seemed like hours.

The solution was to uninstall the drivers and use correct ATI drivers.

Never had a problem since.

I'd uninstall the microsoft beta software and see if that helps.

If that doesn't fix it, remove the monitor driver you installed.

Actually had to run the driver uninstall from the command prompt to get my machine running again.

So you think that MS support patch for Viewsonic possibly messed up the drivers?

I don't really know what the patch did, they don't bother telling you (*******s). So should I just reinstall my nvidia Detonator drivers or reinstall the whole OS?

Raiden said:

So you think that MS support patch for Viewsonic possibly messed up the drivers?

I don't really know what the patch did, they don't bother telling you (*******s). So should I just reinstall my nvidia Detonator drivers or reinstall the whole OS?

Click to expand...

Try reinstalling the drivers first and then if that doesn't work, reinstall the OS.

Oh, and btw does anyone know what LoadQM is for? I disabled it and I'm not sure if I really need it running. Also there was some sort of Daemon that was being loaded as well that I don't remember ever seeing.

This is why I love XP. I always create a system restore point before I install anything. I tried writing Bill to ask him where I could send him more money, XP's well worth much more, but then I thought isn't this system he promissed back in 95? .... never mind

loadqm...It's the query manager for MSN explorer.

So do I need that running? There is also a CplDeamon or something...I'll post what it is later, but not sure if I need that running as well. When you say explorer, do you mean windows explorer or IE?

So I think I found the problem though not in time to save my current OS from being wiped out.

I tried running the WD program I used to install the drive and it detected a foreign program, EZbios, that it hadn't installed that was doing something to the harddrive. So I reinstalled "it's" version and that seemed to fix the disk problems, but not before I had run norton rescue and messed up the partition table. Windows wouldn't reboot so I had to recreate a Windows directory and delete the old one, then delete the new one, and then reinstall Windows again so that it would be set at c:\windows since that seems to be the standard install path most programs look for by default.

I put an old Maxtor drive on my system last week and tried to set it up but the disk wasn't being recognized so I installed a bios program of theirs which I thought would only work on their drive. Well it seems it wanted to work on the WD drive as well and was causing all the problems. So now I have to install all my old programs again, but oh well - at least they didn't get deleted. Now I just have to do reinstalls.


Anyone know a way to make Windows reload all your programs that are on a disk even though they aren't in the registry? Or do you have to do a total reinstall, even though the programs are already there?