blinking hourglass driving me nuts!

[Bartman]

I've been haveing stability issued with my rig for the last 3 weeks. Last night I formated and reinstalled 98se. Now something is using cpu time and makeing my cursor blink the hour glass.

Something is using 34% cpu time in every 2 sec for about 1/2 a sec. it's pulsing. How the hell can I find out what's doing it and stop it!

What the hell would cause it on a fresh install?!

Bart

Update: it's also pageing something to the hard disk when it does this.... wtf?! virus? I had vshield installed?

 

[PowerJoe]

Start -> run.. -> "msconfig" -> startup tab

My guess: Microsoft Findfast (comes with Office). Remove it from your startup menu.

-PJ

 

[Ulysses]

It could be FindFast. Also, hit CTRL + ALT + DEL to see all that is running at that moment.

 

[Bartman]

think I fixed it..

Joe there is nothing installed on this rig.. It's a CLEAN install... well Dnet but I stoped it.

There where only explorer and systray open when ctrl alt del, I stoped systray and it told me the app wasen't responding.. ahh.. something must be corrupt, reinstalled 98 over it self and it seems to be fixed now.

Thanks,
Bart

 

[Bartman]

Still haveing the darn problem. Something is makeing the system tray crash and that's causeing the blinking cursor. What on earth could it be? I have everything clocked at normal speed, I poped on my old TNT, I've even tryed my old cel 366. Could the power supply be on the blink or the mobo going?

Bart

 

[medic]

Run Wintop and see what's running:

http://www.naples.net/ftparea1/ftp_files/wintop.zip

 

[dszd0g]

CRV, little programs like that make these forums even more useful to read. Thanks!

 

[Bartman]

CRV after running wintop for a bit and playing around on the web the cursor started blinking.

When it blinks these programs are using up cpu time

msgsrv32.exe 42%
explorer .44%
ddhelp.exe .15%
systray.exe .05

When it's not haveing the blinking problem there all at 0%


This system is going nuts! what is wrong?! I swaped out the video and riped out the sound card, cd and burner. Only thing in the sys is video, ram, cpu and hd.

I have a funny feeling it the mobo is haveing some kind of problem. I'm going to rip apart my friens system and test my stuff with his mobo and powersupply.

If it is the mobo I'm thinking of going to a Duron and selling my cpu to him for $100 to offset the cost of a Duron and mobo a bit.

What do you think?
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q138/7/08.asp

Bart

 

[medic]

Interesting.. that damn msgsrv32 does so many things that the best way to try to fix it is to do what you did and strip it completely and probably reinstall and add software and hardware one at a time with testing in between, to try and isolate it.
Have you run sfc from Run to check for corrupt files?

 

[Bartman]

That's just it, I did that!!!

It's doing it under a CLEAN install with NO software but 98se INSTALLED!!!! only a nic, video, and hd!!! Heck I even took the nic and one stick of ram out just for kicks. I also installed my old TNT video card to see if that may be the prob

Could it be a boot sector virus that vshield diden't pick up? Is there a good dos based virus scanner out there I could download?

NOTHING changed... one day it just started acting all f'ed up and it's makeing me crazy!

PLEASE I can't take it!! I would start fixing things with a hammer but I just got out of the Air Force and can't afford new stuff right now.

Bart

 

[medic]

Wow strange....
Network Associates or Mcafee (whichever it's called now) or another free or trial based virus scanner should make a rescue disk that you can run from DOS.
A FDISK/MBR can wipe out certain virus's also.
Check this out:
http://www.claws-and-paws.com/virus/faqs/mbrfaq.shtml
Bad link on that page for F-Prot/F-Secure
Go here for a version4 trial:
http://www.datafellows.com/download-purchase/

 

[Bartman]

All files inspected, no viruses detected.....

Could something be messed up on the mobo? I'll be swaping it out in the morning

 

[Bartman]

May have a fix. I swaped out my powersupply with my firends this morning and the problem has gone away. I'm heading out the door right now to pick up a new one. I imagion it got damaged in an electrical storm and was feeding the mobo with dirty power... my guess

I've been using it for 2 hours now with no prob

Bart

 

[Bartman]

No fix, the problem is back! What in the name of god is the problem! This system used to be 100% stable?!

Tonight I installed Win 2k. I played HL for about 15 min and crash. I'm not haveing any other crashes or cpu usage like I was with 98se.

This is still is driveing me nuts. I'm going to install new drive cables and low level my drive in the morning. We'll see what happens.

This is not a good time money wise for things to be going wrong with my rig!

Bart

 

[ragu]

Bartman, I'm having the EXACT SAME problem you are. email me at r4g3@earthlink.net w/ your hardware info + hopefully we can figure something out between the two of us.
-rage

 

[dszd0g]

If you guys do discuss it outside the forums and figure it out, post it back to the forums just so there is a log of the solution for those that search. (I guess this is pretty obvious...) Just thought I'd say please. I like knowing the solutions to esoteric problems. The more odd things one has seen or at least heard of the more esoteric things you know to try. Thanks.

 

[Bartman]

Sure will dszd0g. I've never seen anything like this before. There's only 4 things I can think of that could be left

1. bad cables/hard drive (well that's 2 sorry)
2. bad mobo
3. I may have been using a diffrent ver of 98se before and the one I'm using now is haveing a problem. (don't think so, I used a 98-98se upgrade one time and a full coppy of 98se the other, I tryed both before installing the Microsoft patches/upgrades from there www site) all attempts have the same prob.
4. some kind of virus that can with stand fdisk and can't be detected by F-prot/Norton (not likely) but I'm going to low level the drive with a boot disk for a clean computer in the morning just for "fun"


Well there it is... I don't have an extra mobo lying around to try that but I can do the other stuff. I guess I could yank a BE6 out of a friends computer.... will see.


Bart

 

[HouRman]

I once had hard drive trouble and the thing that fixed it was fixing the CDrom. I guess my setup for the HD and CD rom was linked in someway. Computers do some weird stuff from time to time, but it usually works out in the end.

 

[medic]

Another idea is that msgsrv32 sometimes has problems with Power Mangement and certain hardware, you could try disabling all power management in Control panel..set drives and monitor to Never and disable any screen savers and even go to Device Manager/System Devices/APM Support and clear the check box.

Knowledge Base

 

[Bartman]

Thanks again for the reply CRV but I always do that...... Something is crashing and causeing msgsrv32 to hang. It looks like a program is makeing a request for something and timeing out.

I ran 2k all night with no problems other than I still can't play the game I'm addicted to, Counter Strike.

Last night when I was falling asleep I thought of something could a bad network cord cause a problem? My box is connected to a "server" running 98se modem sharing with Road Runner. Could a bad connection cause some type of prob? That could explain why I'm getting kicked out of CS and maybe why HL is crashing.

Bart

 

[ragu]

What we've found so far is that we both crashed hard in the middle of a fullscreen directx game (halflife for bartman and quake3 for me). With this said, it would seem that there is no hardware solution because I dont think that quake3 could directly damage any hardware... Other than that I dont see why formatting 3 times wouldnt fix it.
-rage

 

[medic]

Possibly...try another network cord, how long is it?

I know you have reinstalled a few times. but have you tried a reinstall with the NIC/S.C. out of the box and CPU at default, don't reinstall it until you test it for a while?

 

[dszd0g]

Just to get you more paranoid. I usually don't talk about it just because it might give others the nasty idea, however, there exists a virus that installs itself onto the firmware on the hard drive itself if it can flash the firmware on the hard drive. It fakes a crash in order to do the reboot to flash. No current virus detectors detect this virus. I forget what it's called. I don't think the one I've seen is the one you guys are experiencing. However, there could be offsprings. I wouldn't pursue the checking for virus since it isn't probable. However, the discussion of a virus that is preserved even though you fdisk and reformat. BIOS viruses are also preserved by fdisk and reformat. The monkey virus was an annoying example that was popular in the days of floppy exchanging and still makes its way into school labs where students bring in floppies.

 

[medic]

dszd0g mentioned the Stoned or Monkey virus...go here for a description and utility to remove it.
Some other Knowledge base articles to check out:
Q262998
Q245583
Q188803

Another fix that worked for some was to add this to your Config.sys file and restart.
FILES=160
BUFFERS=60,0

 

[dszd0g]

Sorry, I forgot. Yeah, the monkey is just an MBR virus. O.K., I am no expert on virii. I don't remember whether fdisk /mbr kills the Monkey virus or not. Everyone I knew that got it years ago used killmonk to get rid of it. I guess I'll let someone else give an example of the virii I'm talking about since I don't remember their names.