Hello,
My computer has been acting quite erratically as of late. I'm hoping some of you kind souls would take a few minutes to read my tale and offer any suggestions on what I could try next.
Background
It all started the other day when my computer just went black and restarted. Being an XP user I didn't think _too_ much of it... until it happened again a few minutes later. The next morning it kept happening and happening again. At one point it was in a loop -- the instant it got past the welcome screen, it would show my desktop for a second before it would restart again, got to the desktop and restarted again, ad infinitum. Then I disabled the option to restart XP upon failure (in safe mode of course) and started tracking the STOP/BSOD errors I was getting.
In the course of one day there were at least 3 different BSOD errors that I got, one had to do with stream.sys and a WDM error, then seemingly out of nowhere the error changed to an IRQL error, then a few others I can't recall. Each time I got a BSOD I would immediately google the error on my laptop. The solutions for each error provided on tech sites varied wildly and nobody ever seemed to have an actual working solution, in that lovely way that people ask questions and then don't come back to indicate how the problem was eventually fixed.
By the end of day the BSOD's had mostly stopped but a new problem had set in -- very high CPU usage even though there were no programs open. I'm talking about 30% with no apps open and the instant I clicked the mouse anywhere or tried to open anything the CPU usage shot up to 99-100% and stayed there. The odd thing is that I haven't installed any hardware or software recently prior to these problems.
The basics of what I'm using
- Home built
- Abit IS7 mobo
- XP Pro SP2
- Pentium 3GHz with 1GB RAM
- MS Mouse/keyboard (both usb)
- Nvidia 6600 GT with dual dvi input (for two dell 2001fp lcd's)
What I've tried so far
- Checked the HD cable connection to both the drive and mobo.
- Checked that all the heatsinks were seated and working.
- Memtested -- both sticks were fine.
- Ran verifier.exe, which initially gave me a stream.sys BSOD on startup, then it mysteriously stopped, perhaps when I uninstalled/removed a TV capture card? Verifier is still running upon startup, no more startup BSOD's.
- Uninstalled graphics card in safe mode, reinstalled it, no difference.
- Virus check (AVG free), spyware/malware/adware check (SmitFraudFix, AdAware, Spybot SD)
- Checked _all_ processes, both in task manager and via the downloadable Windows process checker that shows you what each process belongs to, etc. I forget the name of it. Neither yielded any surprising results -- nothing is actually taking up all this CPU usage, but task manager says at the bottom that it is (ie, the final #).
Out of ideas
I cannot for the life of me figure out where the high CPU usage is coming from. I imagine the random STOP/BSOD's are somehow connected?
The one interesting possible lead is that when I'm in safe mode, I don't have the high CPU usage problem. I thought it may be a graphics driver issue but I ruled that out. I don't quite know how to follow this up.
I feel like my only option at this point is back everything up and do a fresh install. But quite frankly at 99-100% cpu usage it's a bit difficult to back things up. Furthermore, I've read reports of other users having similar BSOD's and some people have gotten the errors on brand new systems/installations! So the option of a fresh install doesn't give me much confidence.
Prior to doing that is there you might suggest that I could / should try?
Thanks for your time and any help/ideas you can provide
My computer has been acting quite erratically as of late. I'm hoping some of you kind souls would take a few minutes to read my tale and offer any suggestions on what I could try next.
Background
It all started the other day when my computer just went black and restarted. Being an XP user I didn't think _too_ much of it... until it happened again a few minutes later. The next morning it kept happening and happening again. At one point it was in a loop -- the instant it got past the welcome screen, it would show my desktop for a second before it would restart again, got to the desktop and restarted again, ad infinitum. Then I disabled the option to restart XP upon failure (in safe mode of course) and started tracking the STOP/BSOD errors I was getting.
In the course of one day there were at least 3 different BSOD errors that I got, one had to do with stream.sys and a WDM error, then seemingly out of nowhere the error changed to an IRQL error, then a few others I can't recall. Each time I got a BSOD I would immediately google the error on my laptop. The solutions for each error provided on tech sites varied wildly and nobody ever seemed to have an actual working solution, in that lovely way that people ask questions and then don't come back to indicate how the problem was eventually fixed.
By the end of day the BSOD's had mostly stopped but a new problem had set in -- very high CPU usage even though there were no programs open. I'm talking about 30% with no apps open and the instant I clicked the mouse anywhere or tried to open anything the CPU usage shot up to 99-100% and stayed there. The odd thing is that I haven't installed any hardware or software recently prior to these problems.
The basics of what I'm using
- Home built
- Abit IS7 mobo
- XP Pro SP2
- Pentium 3GHz with 1GB RAM
- MS Mouse/keyboard (both usb)
- Nvidia 6600 GT with dual dvi input (for two dell 2001fp lcd's)
What I've tried so far
- Checked the HD cable connection to both the drive and mobo.
- Checked that all the heatsinks were seated and working.
- Memtested -- both sticks were fine.
- Ran verifier.exe, which initially gave me a stream.sys BSOD on startup, then it mysteriously stopped, perhaps when I uninstalled/removed a TV capture card? Verifier is still running upon startup, no more startup BSOD's.
- Uninstalled graphics card in safe mode, reinstalled it, no difference.
- Virus check (AVG free), spyware/malware/adware check (SmitFraudFix, AdAware, Spybot SD)
- Checked _all_ processes, both in task manager and via the downloadable Windows process checker that shows you what each process belongs to, etc. I forget the name of it. Neither yielded any surprising results -- nothing is actually taking up all this CPU usage, but task manager says at the bottom that it is (ie, the final #).
Out of ideas
I cannot for the life of me figure out where the high CPU usage is coming from. I imagine the random STOP/BSOD's are somehow connected?
The one interesting possible lead is that when I'm in safe mode, I don't have the high CPU usage problem. I thought it may be a graphics driver issue but I ruled that out. I don't quite know how to follow this up.
I feel like my only option at this point is back everything up and do a fresh install. But quite frankly at 99-100% cpu usage it's a bit difficult to back things up. Furthermore, I've read reports of other users having similar BSOD's and some people have gotten the errors on brand new systems/installations! So the option of a fresh install doesn't give me much confidence.
Prior to doing that is there you might suggest that I could / should try?
Thanks for your time and any help/ideas you can provide
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