XP Pro post startup failures

[Hammer1]

I?m having what seems to be the beginning of a catastrophic failure or maybe virus or malware. XP Pro
Symptoms:
Upon PC startup one of the following usually occurs:

• Sometimes when selecting anything the PC will reboot
  
  • Nothing will work, the start menu wont come up, no response from CTL ALT DEL etc. so I hit the reset button.
    
    Windows seems to work fine but after its loaded, But I get a ?Generic host process for win32 services? warning and most programs do not respond when when their icon is selected.
    
    Usually after several restarts, things will start working.
    
    I have AVG antivirus (free) and AddAware full version, both are up to date and run clean. Although Addaware was not updated for some time and once I updated it a lot of junk was detected and cleaned up.
    
    Any suggestions?
    Thanks
    Robert

 

[mechBgon]

Back up your important data, so that whether it's malware or hardware failure, you don't lose important stuff.

After backing up, run diagnostic tests on your hard drive using the HDD manufacturer's utility, I have links to them on this page at the bottom. If the drive is failing, get a new drive.

AVG antivirus is a lukewarm performer compared to AntiVir or free Kaspersky 6, so you might want to uninstall AVG, install one of these others instead, update, fully configure them to use all their optional detections, and then run a full scan.

If Windows is just corrupted, my advice would be to do a fresh install. Take precautions (scroll down to the first big pic and start from there) so you don't get infected right over the wire by worms in the process. Get it all secured, get antivirus installed/configured/updated, then reinstall your software and restore your stuff from backup.

 

[Xsorovan]

Some of these problems COULD be hardware failure. (as Mechbgon) said. However the random restarts and un-responsiveness makes me think it could be RAM. I'd suggest if you happen to have any extra RAM lying around that you give it a try and see if the issue goes away or not. If it doesn't you can proceed to something a little more heavy like rebuilding windows or something. (If you think windows might be corrrupted try typing "sfc /scannow" into the run command box. It'll scan windows for corrupted files. (windows button and R bring it up if you can't get the start menu up)

Other than that I'm behind mechbgon's response.

 

[Hammer1]

thanks for the help I will perform a backup tonight and then start investigating using your sugestions over the next few days.

I havent been on the Anandtech forums for years but some how I knew the right place to go, for good sound advice, as soon as this problem came up .

 

[Hammer1]

Thanks Guys, it is one of my memory sticks. I ran the Mem86 test and by removing sticks found the culprit, called Crucial and they gave me an RMA no questions asked. Thanks for the help and I will be taking some of the sugested security precautions just the same.
Thanks Again
Robert