System loses volume and IE hangs

[shepherdofchaos]

I'm a newbie with XP and need some help in trying to isolate these problems. They do not occur concurrently, but I suspect they might be related.

After being up for a few minutes, my wife's computer sporadically loses all sound. I've checked system volume, etc., and no problems there or in hardware manager. Everything looks fine, just no sound, and it doesn't always happen.

What does always happen is that Internet Explorer, on her login (which is admin), hangs, sometimes immediately, sometimes after loading a few pages, but almost always within a minute or two. Interestingly, it DOESN'T crash in my login (also admin). Also of interest, task manager shows 2 instances of IE running when it crashes.

Additionally, the page content that seems to produce an immediate crash result are those with ads, i.e. those that SpyBot (installed) would be trying to block spyware from, but I haven't thoroughly tested that enough to say it was fact.

machine specs:
Windows XP Professional
700mhz Duron, 192MB RAM
Abit KT7A
GEFORCE-MX4 440
Aureal Vortex 8830
Netgear PCI ethernet

Interesting system event message:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ACPI
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4
Date: 2/8/2004
Time: 3:45:35 PM
User: N/A
Computer: G4E4K6
Description:
AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0x71), which lies in the 0x70 - 0x71 protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 04 00 52 00 ......R.
0008: 00 00 00 00 04 00 05 c0 .......À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

This occurs 3-4 times and is either being reported at shutdown or startup, I can't tell which.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 2/8/2004
Time: 3:05:52 PM
User: N/A
Computer: G4E4K6
Description:
Hanging application iexplore.exe, version 6.0.2800.1106, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 69 65 78 70 6c 6f iexplo
0018: 72 65 2e 65 78 65 20 36 re.exe 6
0020: 2e 30 2e 32 38 30 30 2e .0.2800.
0028: 31 31 30 36 20 69 6e 20 1106 in
0030: 68 75 6e 67 61 70 70 20 hungapp
0038: 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 0.0.0.0
0040: 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 at offse
0048: 74 20 30 30 30 30 30 30 t 000000
0050: 30 30 00

This one, of course, occurs when IE hangs.

Any suggestions on what to look at or try next greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[SUOrangeman]

Via chipset? Latest 4-in-1 drivers being used?

-SUO

 

[Zinn2b]

I believe that this is the wrong forum for that ques.it sounds like a software problem to me. but this is what you can do GO to PC Pitstop run there free test it takes about 3 min. after you get your results I believe you well have 1yellow flag that well be for internet explorer and 1 red flag there in lies your problem now I could tell you how to fix it if you get the red flag but the people at this forum really get on me when I even mention it also please forgive bad spelling and grammer I am tring to learn how to use keyboard without looking at keys and i make mistakes don't we all he how is without fault let him cast the first stone

 

[buleyb]

Chaos, what happens when you log in with her account under safe mode?

and for once, I think I agree with Zinn2b, the OS forum might have more insight...but don't move it until we get more info, it could be hardware (more specifically, hardware drivers) related too.

 

[shepherdofchaos]

Okay, some results: safe mode makes no difference- same behaviour- IE crashes in my wife's login, but is perfectly fine in my login.

Doesn't the fact that everything works fine in my login kind of eliminate the possibility of a hardware driver problem (such as the via 4-1's or something else)?

Also, I now do not think the sound problem is related; I've been able to replicate the IE problem consistently in the absence of the sound problem. So this probably should be in the OS forum.

Something I have noted is that pages with largely static content, i.e. no active content (no ASP?), do not seem to crash. But as soon as a page is loaded that does anything remotely fancy (ad stuff, usually), IE hangs. In particular, the diagnostic tests at www.pcpitstop.com will not run; they're using some ASP component plugins in Netscape (couldn't use IE for obvious reasons).

So it seems like it has to be something installed and running in my wife's space that isn't running in mine. Thing is, I've checked the system logs pretty thoroughly and can't find any clear demarcation line of the problem presenting itself after an installation. In fact, the only suspicious installations are windows updates, and most of those were an effort to fix the already existing problem.

Scratchin' ma' head...

 

[imported_Phil]

If you're getting ACPI errors, the first thing to try is a BIOS update, or even downgrade to a lower version. Do you have Service Pack 1 & all applicable updates installed?
At work, we have a problem with our testing machine- Internet Explorer 6.01 SP1 is unstable on any account but the main, initially-created account. Sometimes it'll refuse to load pages. Opera works fine though.
You could always create her a new account and move her documents over, to see if that cures it. If not, a reinstall or System Restore by a few weeks should help.