Originally posted by Ripper:

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If your CPU was actually sitting idle at 100% load, then surely it would be overheating and causing the machine to shut off - this is obviously not the case if you can run Prime95 overnight with no issues.

Try another monitoring program like Dela suggested, perhaps your CPU and/or Windows is reporting the load incorrectly.

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Originally posted by Ripper:

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Dela,

Quote:

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I ran memtest86 and passed. I installed process explorer but could not identify a specific area that had an abnormal consumption rate.

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It would be worth checking your modules individually though, if you did not before.

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Originally posted by Dela:

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Originally posted by Ripper:

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Dela,

Quote:

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I ran memtest86 and passed. I installed process explorer but could not identify a specific area that had an abnormal consumption rate.

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It would be worth checking your modules individually though, if you did not before.

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Somehow I completely missed that part of his original post :-) Oh well, though if the system is actually BSOD'ing then its still down to kernel memory, which points the finger at device drivers or perhaps something more malicious, or a malfunctioning piece of hardware is also possible but hard to tell from here. If a driver than the answer could lie in a crash dump on the disk.

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Originally posted by Ripper:

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Must have missed that it no longer idles at 100% somewhere along the way, but that's good. Is that a re-install on one partition or a complete format of the drive and fresh install?

As ddp said; leave one stick of ram in and test them individually using memtest. It's difficult to say really, could be worth trying a different PSU too if you have access to one but we're shooting in the dark a little bit.

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Originally posted by jam320:

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Originally posted by ddp:

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at what point did you get that bsod, before or after symantec?

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After the failed install of Symantec.

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Originally posted by Dela:

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Originally posted by jam320:

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Originally posted by Dela:

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Also, since you are running a 64-bit version of Windows, your odds of having some kind of rootkit/bootkit problem are dramatically lower than usual, but there's a few ways it can happen so running a quick check with tdsskiller might be a good idea anywauy..

http://support.kaspersky.com/5350

Other than that, if your problem coincided with the installation (or failed installation as the case may be...) of a security product, then you should go to the vendor's website and find a removal tool for that specific product, which will check your system for every trace of it and remove it for you. Just another thought :-)

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Thanks. I ran a rootkit scan several weeks ago but it wasn't Kaspersky so it wouldn't hurt to try this one. I'm not confident that it will not crash during the scan though. Since this is currently occurring with each attempt to add win updates.

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When you say crash you mean the comp restarts? If the system is blue screening then you might be able to get your answer from a crash dump analysis. Windows 7 will create a Kernel Memory Dump by default as %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP

When the system BSOD's, that means something has called KeBugCheckEx in Windows after encountering a problem in Kernel mode memory. The system is immediately halted, and a crash dump is written to the page file (pagefile.sys). By default, once the dump is written the system reboots (unless you manually set it to keep the BSOD displayed), and on boot a small tool will launch in the background that searches the pagefile for a memory dump and then extracts it as a crash dump. This will be MEMORY.DMP in your system root drive. I could be wrong, but in Windows 7 I think it might still be default that a minidump is also written to the directory "%systemroot%\windows\minidump\" which, if it is, you can upload the latest dump somewhere and I can analyse it for you if you want.

But ye, given that you already attempted a re-install (full re-install, or repair?) your problem might not be caused by a bad A/V installation. Instead, to me it seems like it could be your memory. I think that because your problem is getting progressively worse, and that is typically what you will see with a failing memory module.

To test memory, you just need Memtest86 (or Windows has a diagnostic utility you can boot into too, but Memtest86 is very good).

Memtest86 Auto Installer for USB Key: http://www.afterdawn.com/software/syste...t86plus_exe.cfm

Memtest86 bootable ISO: http://www.afterdawn.com/software/syste...t86plus_iso.cfm

I assume you already know how to boot from USB or CD so I don't need to go into that? It will run a test immediately on your memory. ANY errors is a bad sign. If you find yourself picking up errors, then end the program, turn off the PC and open it. Remove a memory module and then turn it on again, boot into Memtest86 and check for errors. If you still get errors, then remove another one (if there's only one more left, then re-insert the previously removed memory) and repeat the process. By process of elimination you should be able to find the memory stick giving you trouble.

If you find there's nothing wrong with your system's memory, it doesnt change the fact that something is going wrong in kernel mode memory, if you are getting system halts. A possibility for a system halt is a problem with a hard disk drive, particularly if there is problems during a swapping operation. Go to Control Panel (view as large icon) -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. In Event Viewer, go to Windows logs, and then System (it might take a short while to pull up the logs). Any Disk errors?

If no memory or disk problems, then it must be either some kind of bad driver or bad hardware attached to the system that is causing the problem. If its a driver, then we might be able to get the system to spit up a more accurate BSOD and crash dump using a tool called Driver Verifier, but we can cross that bridge if we come to it :-)

I'll leave it at that for now.

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Originally posted by aldan:

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this is out of my area,but have you tried googling the error messages or better yet go to the microsoft support site and search the messages there?

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