Looking for a bit of help. The last few months my desktop keeps re-setting itself. Running XP home, with Norton I/S and S/W. What can I do.

burn it.,get a mac.am at home and my comp refused to connect tothe internet for 2 hours becuase of mcafee,which wasnt even running.it makes sense to the computer but not to me.

Thanks, but that is not very much help.
Anyone else???

lol

What, exactly, do you mean by saying your desktop 'resets itself'???

burn it.,get a mac.am at home and my comp refused to connect tothe internet for 2 hours becuase of mcafee,which wasnt even running.it makes sense to the computer but not to me.

Typical Mac user. I don't want to figure a simple problem out so I buy an overpriced machine that has poor performance and can't run most software.

But I don't want to get into a PC/Mac debate right about now.

You have to be more specific with your problem. Does your computer completely just shut down all of a sudden, or does it lock up/give you the blue screen of death (BSOD) and make you restart? If it just shuts down completely, which is what it sounds like it's doing, it is a hardware issue. Maybe a dying power supply, it's hard to say. You will have to take it to a PC repair shop (or maybe use your manufacturer's warranty if you have one) to know for sure.

If you are getting the BSOD, it could be a hardware issue as well. I had a few sectors of one of my RAM sticks go bad one time, and every time a program tried to use those sectors, I would get a BSOD. Swapped out the RAM stick, everything was fine.

It's hard to tell what it is for sure, so many things can go wrong with computers. It is also difficult because many different kinds of problems can have the same effect. A problem such as yours is most likely hardware related, maybe a bad power supply or some corrupt RAM. It takes some experience in working with computers to narrow a problem down so you can find a solution.

My suggestion would be to take it to a computer repair shop (that is, if you cannot figure it out yourself), or contact your computer manufacturer to see if you can get it repaired under warranty.

The most common hardware cause of seemingly random reboots or shutdowns is a failing power supply, if you have a good power supply lying around try putting that one in and see if the computer still has problems. Make sure the power supply is the same or higher wattage though, if it's much lower it might not be enough to run everything in the computer.

Also check to make sure your copy of Windows is not set to reboot automatically when it hits a BSOD. To check this hold down the Windows key and press Pause/Break then click on the Advanced tab and click on Settings in the Startup and Recovery section. Uncheck "Automatically Restart" if it's checked. If it was checked, then it's likely your computer was running into a BSOD but just restarting automatically instead of actually showing the error.

If you ever get a bluescreen error, write down the first few lines and post them here, that will go a long way to figuring out the problem.

What he was saying is his user settings arent being saved not that his computer re starts. Bruin try downloading Ad-Aware from lavasoft you get free versions , and security task manager, install both and scan the computer it seems like a trojan is in the Win 32 files.

Typical Mac user. I don't want to figure a simple problem out so I buy an overpriced machine that has poor performance and can't run most software.



i dont have a mac.they are better for what i want tho.im just broke at the moment.

You're .mac in your heart. :p

Thanks for the input. "Od", you have the right idea.

I don't get the BSOD, nor does it re-boot. When I close a window and get back to the desktop, I get a minor stall and the desktop icons all re-set.

I have Anti spyware installed.

I should mention I get an Explorer.exe error box showing up with..."Wait" or "End Now" buttons. This happens once in a while when shutting down.

Smells like trojan spirit.

Actually, it sounds like low ram.

When you mean the 'icons all re-set' do you mean that at first the icons aren't there and then they start showing up one by one?

It may be your cpu usage, not ram. Not entirely sure. I see this when using a lot of resources.

Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and go to the performance tab. How much ram are you using? How much cpu?

The difficulty shutting down Explorer also leads me to believe that you're low on resources. (Explorer, by the way, is basically the file explorer that windows uses.)

Ah, I think I was wrong and invert is right. I've started to forget how Windows acts..

Yes! Invert has the closest prognosis yet.
That is where was initially looking at but was very unsure.
So I guess a trip to the store for more ram is the solution.
Thanks.

Maybe. As I said, I can't remember which causes this effect. Cpu or Ram.
As I said, press ctrl-alt-del. Check the performance tab.

If one or the other is used up, check the processes tab and click the cpu column marker to line up your processes by cpu usage (if your processor is being maxed out) and your mem usage marker for memory (if your memory is being used.) You might have too many background programs running. Or some faulty application that is eating up resources. Or even a trojan. Who knows? Only one way to find out.

How much ram do you have? I recommend 512 minimum for xp.
But, it'd be a waste of money to buy more ram only to find out that the culprit was your cpu and/or some crappy program.

Hmm. Looking at my process listing I have iTunesHelper running eating up about 3 megs of ram. That's a waste of resources. Every little bit helps. Bye bye iTunesHelper. Oh. Look at that. iPodService eating up another 2 1/4 megs. Bastard apple. I don't have a stinking iPod.

Know your processes. Know your services. Words to the wise.

The most common hardware cause of seemingly random reboots or shutdowns is a failing power supply, if you have a good power supply lying around try putting that one in and see if the computer still has problems. Make sure the power supply is the same or higher wattage though, if it's much lower it might not be enough to run everything in the computer.

i second that, my computer could only run DC for 5 mins on my 300w, now that ive got a half decent 450w in it works fine for an hour

You know that the problems is somewhere else then, right? :bugeye:

if anywhere else its my secondhand generic DDR.

Thanks for the input. "Od", you have the right idea.

I don't get the BSOD, nor does it re-boot. When I close a window and get back to the desktop, I get a minor stall and the desktop icons all re-set.

I have Anti spyware installed.

I should mention I get an Explorer.exe error box showing up with..."Wait" or "End Now" buttons. This happens once in a while when shutting down.

try getting security task manager its a very usefull program to have, other than that i cant understand why it dosnt work... might be a registry fault somwhere which will be harder to fix. I also used to get explorer errors but i got rid of that computer.

can you post the full specs of your computer as it might be lack of RAM?

Try going to ... left click start, go to run, type in msconfig, look for start up tab at top , see what's running on start up then uncheck everything EXCEPT spyware or antivirus protection then reboot and see what happens. By unchecking the things in start up you won't be deleting anything just preventing them from running in the background which causes CPU usage that is uneeded. The power supply and ram are also things that have neen stated that should be looked into as well.

Check your registry and make sure that it is not set to AlwaysUnloadDll.

Hkey_local_machine\software\microsoft\windows\curr entversion\explorer\AlwaysUnloadDll
The value should be set to 0 -Zero