Larian Studios Forums General Chat Chat (Anything) The PC "Help" Thread

OK, managed to scan the smaller drive, fault detected and corrected. Everything seems to be running normally again.

Übereil

Ooookay...

The problems are back (sort of). But now they activate when playing Football Manager, when browsing Firefox and when playing older, less requireing games. Firefox just froze, and after I rebooted things have been weirder than ever.

The first thing was that the loadscreen for Windows XP bugged. You know the bad with four (I think it's four) bars going from left to right to show that XP is loading? The top of those bars kept sticking, so after the bar had gone from left to right, there were bits of the bars still in there. Plus, bits got stuck outside the area where they showed (to the right).

When I loaded XP the resolution had for some reason been changed to 800x600. I switched back, but noticed another weird thing. Normally I can choose max 1280x1024, but this time I could choose max 2048x1536, which is way more than my monitor can handle (the choises are normally adjusted by this, but not today). Seconed, the advanced screen (where you can change the update frequency) has a lot less options than normally. And I couldn't change the update frequency (I can normally choose between 60 Hz and 75 Hz) because it was stuck to the default GPU setting. The screen posisioning had been changed as well, but I suspect that has to do with the different setting on the updatefrequency.

Last, scrolling isn't working normally (occasionally). It doesn't tick one step per scroll, it sort of slowly slides four steps at a time. Reminds of a wave.

So, is it time to say my prayers yet?

Übereil

I had a similar problem after I had installed a new driver for my video card. Booting in safe mode, deinstalling the new driver and reinstalling an older version fixed my problem, but as you haven't done anything to your video card driver, it would suprise me if this is caused by your video card driver. Still, installing the newest drivers couldn't hurt(remember to remove the old ones first though).

Raze will probably come up with the solution again, so no need to worry Ubereil

Removeing the old drivers first...?

I've installed new drivers twice now without uninstalling the old drivers...

Übereil

A clean re-install or update of the video drivers is worth a try. I'd also check for an updated inf file at you monitor manufacturer's website. The current monitor driver may be corrupt, or have been switch to 'default monitor', or something. You can check that in the Device Manager.

It is best to uninstall video drivers before installing an update. Unless I ran into a problem, though, I usually just installed over the current drivers.


Anything less than 80Hz refresh rate on a CRT monitor gives me eye strain, usually followed by a headache.


Your scrolling rate may be determined by a setting somewhere that got changed / reset. Check your mouse configuration, etc. In Win 9x, the MS powertoy TweakUI has an option to disable smooth scrolling, which I think is the wave effect you are describing. In XP try Turn On or Turn Off Smooth Scrolling and Enable or Disable Windows XP Interface Components.


If you don't want to try a new Windows install, a Linux live CD could help determine if your problems are hardware or software related (as long as your video card and monitor are detected properly). AFAIK there are not a lot of really demanding games for Linux, but if you can play some mp3s while browsing in Firefox without freezes, and don't notice any graphics glitches playing a movie or any solitaire / pinball class games, then that implies Windows may be at fault. If you observe the save types of graphics glitches and freezes, then it may be a hardware problem.

Reinstalling the latest GPU-drivers seems to have fixed it (I allso uninstalled the old installation first). I'll run it until it crashes again.

And I'm on a TFT-screen, so 75 is allright.

Edit: 15 seconds after posting this Firefox started spikeing like mad. Screen went black for a few seconds, but then everything came back to normal. Well, we'll see how things run...

Edit 2: Now WC3 froze. Twice. Problems are still here.

Übereil

Sure it isn't overclocked ?

Well, I've never overclocked anything. Is it possible to accidentaly overclock something (softwarewise)?

Übereil

Hm, maybe it was already put to a higher clock rate at the manufactory ?

Some motherboards have Windows based overclocking programs, but there are no checkmark options in Windows somewhere that you could accidentally enable to overclock. I'm not sure exactly when the Windows overclocking programs started showing up, but I think since your computer is more than a couple years old it is unlikely that would be an option.

Other than the CPU / motherboard / video card / power supply slowly dying, or serious problems with Windows....

Has your computer been either louder or quieter than normal lately? A dying fan could cause overheating, which can cause freezing or reboots. Depending on wether your CPU has any kind of thermal protection built in, it could be throttling down due to heat.

A loose cable or card can cause intermittent freezes or reboots (though not the CPU spikes, AFAIK).


Does the computer seem to work fine for awhile after you reboot, or when you first turn it on, but then start to have problems the longer it is on?

Are the problems worse when you have multiple programs running, etc?

There are probably some diagnostic programs around you could use to try to test various system components. I have not used anything recently, so don't know what to recommend.

...

Randomly trying stuff may identify and fix the problem, but at this point I think it would probably be easier to change the software (Linux or a clean install of Windows) or (if possible) start changing hardware (if you have a spare video card, or can swap with another system, that would probably be the easiest hardware to check, next to RAM).


Also, you might want to make a backup, if you have not done so lately. Even if it is a software problem, you don't want to loose your data (email, saved games, etc) if Windows deteriorates to the point of not being able to boot.

AFAIK it's not louder than normal, and AFAIK it worked fine for most of yesterday (I spent quite some time playing FM, it was only during the evening the problems came back... hmm...).

And I'm allready looking into possible backup. I'm considering buying an USB-HD.

Übereil

Well, it doesn't seem like a fan problem. The computer was on yesterday between 14:00 and 22:00, and it ran flawlessly. Today it was on for about half an hour when the screen simply went black for no reason (I was browsing forums and listening to mp3's).

I'll see to testing Linux, but I'm a bit concerned about installing it on one of my HD's. If I do, do I have to format the HD first, or is there another way to do it that doesn't include removeing all the data from it? I've allso read that it's possible to run it from a CD, is that a reasonable option?

Übereil

You can re-partition a hard drive to install Linux, if you have enough free space, but it would be easier (and safer) to just run it from a CD ( LiveCD List ). If download size isn't a problem, Ubuntu's Live CD would probably be the easiest option (user friendly and good hardware support). You pretty much only need a media player, browser and perhaps a few games to try to replicate the problem, so a smaller Linux version should work. I've seen a couple favourable mentions of Puppy Linux, but have not tried it.

Well, after running a program called Registry Booster (which fixes register errors) problems seems to have seized occuring (with 24 files ending up in the waste bin...). For now, at least.

Übereil

Quit saying the problem seems to be gone. You're just tempting fate....

Well, my problems just seem to multiply... ::) The problem with freezeing seems to stay. I've updated a few drivers, which seems to keep em off temporary, but that's the problem. It's just temporal sollutions. It does seem to be related to my graphic drivers though (there was this NV4% file that caused a bluescreen) I allso have problems with SVCHOST.exe sucking all my processing powers from time to time.

I've reinstalled my graphic drivers thrice. As I said, it seems to work for a start, but give it a few weeks and the freezes come back...

Übereil

Then I guess that it is a hardware problem, not a software one.

I'm not sure why re-installing drivers would fix the problem for a couple weeks...

I have a similar issue with my computer, though much less serious. A few times now (over the last few years) the sound has just stopped working. The first time I checked the speakers, all the sound settings, tried known working speakers, etc. A clean re-instal of the drivers fixes the problem, though Windows, DirectX, etc all say they were installed properly before and working fine.


I'd check out the SVCHOST.exe file; the first google hit I got says it may be a legitimate Windows process, but it could be malware depending on which directory it is running from.

SVCHOST.EXE is perfectly ligit. It's a windows service host, i.e. a process that provides a running environment for your typical windows services, which are stored in dll files. Because you can't run a dll file, you need an executable which dynamically links to these dll's. That's svchost.

So from time to time, you may see several svchost processes popping up. Don't worry about it, those are just different environments for a number of different windows services (one svchost.exe per service).

If these bother you, or they take up too much processor time, you can always disable some services you don't need. If you don't know how to do that, it's probably best not to do it at all (so I won't tell you how; for your own safety).

Of course, like Raze states, there might still be other unsafety issues. One is the reason Raze mentions above (svchost.exe being run from a different location, meaning that it's not the original windows' svchost running); another is that some malign 'service' has found its way on your pc (so svchost itself is okay, but the dll it is linked to isn't).

For the first problem, just search your computer for all svchost.exe files (make sure you also search hidden and system files). If you find any other file than the one in c:\[WINFOLDER]\system32, try to remove it.

For the second problem, you may want to learn about services, how you get a list, and how you disable/remove them. Because it's too much to explain (and I have to start working now), you might be better off looking for some site that gives you the rundown and work from there.

Another "problem" I've noticed occasionally is that when I start the activity handler (can't recall the english word :blush:) and check running processes the user name (where you can see who's running the service. The categories are System, Network Service and me) is blank. IE no username given (with a few exeptions). I don't know if this can be considered bad or dangerous, which makes me worried (because it MIGHT be bad or dangerous).

For the search on SVCHOST.exe I got this result ('namn'='name' and 'I mapp'='In map'):



Which of the files do you suggest on removeing?

And for the learning about servises, would you mind finding a link for me? You know what it's about, so it should be easier for you to find a decent guide for me. You don't have to filter the entire web for the best guide, just do a google search, and look until you find a guide for what you're talking about.

Übereil