4 computers - various problems

This will probably be quite a long post (my speciality on messageboards) so apologies before I start, I'll try to keep everything clear.

Background
Originally from the UK I now live in Finland with my Finnish partner, I have 2 PCs that I brought with me from the UK -
1) PB 2GHZ, 512Mb, c: 60Gb, d: 80Gb, q: CD-RW, r: DVD-RW, AGP 128Mb, WinXP, NIS2004 + various odds and ends

2) PB 600MHz, 512Mb, c: 20Gb, d: 60Gb, q: DVD-ROM, r: CD-RW, unknown GC, WinME, NIS2003 + other bits and bobs

Net connection is 1 Meg DSL, 2) via wireless router (most of the time), PCs are not networked. My partner's work Laptop also shares the connection (either wirelessly or via cable connection) when she's working from home.

Now to complicate matters -
her 3 teenage kids F17, M15, M13 live with her ex (possibly the most amicable divorce you'll ever come across), most weekends at least one of the boys stays with us (both here at the moment), the eldest has a summer job local to us so he's been staying here for the last few weeks. 2) has stood up to the 16 hours a day Wolfenstein gameplay well and there have been no problems removing the dialers and viruses downloaded along with the porn, 15 yo boy, what else would you expect? but you may make the obvious jump from this when I now bring up the other 2 computers that live with the ex and kids.

3) 350Mhz, 196Mb, c: 6Gb, d: CD-ROM, unknown GC, WIN98SE(FIN), F-Secure

4) Toshiba Laptop 700MHz, 256Mb, 12Gb HDD > c: 6Gb + d: 6Gb, e: CD-ROM, unknown GC, Win98SE, (no floppy drive)

The laptop is my partner's old work machine bought from her previous employer when she left, HD totally wiped then a clean install of WIn98SE by them, no updates, no patches and note no AV or FW that she gave to her daughter several months ago.

3) originally ran Win95 but had been upgraded (ha!) to Win98 before it was bought as a "cheap" replacement for their previous Win95 thing that died earlier this year.

A few weeks ago her ex upgraded to broadband, the package included a Xyzel (?) DSL modem that creates a network whether you want one or not (I believe). I don't know exactly how it was set up or whether the type of modem and settings has any bearing on the problems that followed but I wouldn't be surprised.

The problems
1) only minor annoyances really that I can live with but wouldn't be upset if they could be cured. Norton Live Update won't install the new definitions automatically, I have had to do it manually for several months now. There are other problems within Norton such as the admin option has disappeared so I can't turn of the constant auto update attempts, but as I remain (apprently) virus free I can survive the 2 months until I upgrade to NIS2005. If I turn the PC off it will reboot itself at least once within a few minutes of start up unless I remember to reboot it immediately. I get around this by using stand by mode instead but it's an even chance that I lose sound when I restart (always fixed by rebooting).

2) no end of problems when I first had it running Win98, virtually no problems in the last 3 years or so since upgrading to WinME

3) & 4) the first reported problems (to me) came just over a week ago when 4) refused to connect to the Net followed a couple of days later by 3) also refusing. Both are now here with me.

3) a virus scan found 22 infections, whether these were fixed or not is debateable or whether something that was removed as a virus wasn't one I don't know as major boot up problems have ensued. After a great deal of fiddling about I've managed to reinstall WIn98SE(FIN) and can boot to windows (partly by disabling F-Secure from trying to load various things at start up) but the display won't be budged from 16 colours and the CD-ROM drive won't work although device manager says it's okay. Oh, and F-Secure is and isn't there, it is there in that it wants to load components at start up (now disabled) but the actual .exe seems to be missing.

4) A surface scan found a lot of problems, a program called disk genius that I ran this morning reports 7 bad cylinders in c: and 11 in d:, defrag has shuffled things about on the drive. I did manage to get online a couple of days ago, just the 24 critical updates from microsoft were downloaded and installed, perhaps I should have sorted AV first but after running the online checks at Symantec and F-Secure I downloaded NIS2005 trial version and removed the 5 infections that were found, another couple of online checks and a re-run of NAV leads me to believe the system is clean. Today I've temporarily installed AVG which also finds nothing.

Right from windows boot up there is one of those nice little windows error messages "explorer: this program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" details >> "explorer caused an invalid page fault in module <unknown> at 0000.100015cf." Online searches show that this is quite a common problem but finding a solution???? Several possibilities given by microsoft were tried and failed, I've also tried several that seemed applicable that I've read in various forums, still no change. BTW the problem does occur in safe mode but usually only when closing safe mode.

Due to the laptop deciding not to connect to the Net any more I've downloaded various utilities (mainly from the download section of this site) onto this PC, burned them onto CD to transfer and attempted fixes. Ho hum!

Due dislike of people here passing on OS disks with the machines they sell I made the mistake of installing the Finnish version of Win98 over the English version, 1) it didn't cure anything 2) there are now over 900 duplicate files that I guess will have to deleted one at a time 3) start up only includes programs installed in the Finnish version of program files so all the English ones will have to be added, again probably one at a time. IF there's any point that is.

My partner in her wisdom decided that whilst the system was relatively stable (don't close the explorer error message and you can keep working) that the Finnish version of NIS2005 and would be better than the English 15 day trial so bought it, downloaded and installed, well almost, installation problems! I can't remember the name of the .dll right now but the same one kept stopping attempts to do anything at all and of course the Net connection has now failed totally. The lights are on but no data transfer, maybe Norton FW blocking all? I can't even uninstall what is there at present due to the .dll.

I then had the bright idea of installing WinME, this went well, no problems, cured the explorer start up error but still no Net and after opening IE the explorer error returned along with the occasional rundll error and there may have been another too. I've uninstalled WinME again and have returned to the mixed language Win98SE with the explorer error still popping up at every mouse click.

Is there anything left to try? 3) can be skipped but she wants the laptop to survive a couple of years. Format c: or new HD are the only options that I have left unless someone has better ideas? (I don't see the point in spending money on software that might not solve the problem(s) when the same money could be spent on hardware)

 

Welcome to the board!

It could be a project to clean all of the problems up -- unless you're up for formatting and reinstalling. But then you've got to contend with backing up needed data somewhere.

If you're feeling adventurous, here's a link to get you started removing viruses and spyware that may impede resolving all these issues.

You may want to wait to get some other people's opinions before starting down one of the paths I described. If you decide to format and reinstall, the link I provided still has links to programs that will help prevent the computers from getting back into their current states, so it'd be worthwhile to peruse it anyway.

 

Drekly, You'd be better posting individual PC problems as separate threads. Most readers are going to lose interest trying to read your verbose post.

Suggest you try again and make a thread for each PC problem and you will get better (and quicker) results. Bazza

 

Thanks for the replies, I'd just about decided to format the laptop and install WinME and had scandisk running in DOS throughout most of the evening in preparation so have had a chance to browse the link noahawk gave.

The "about:blank" section rang a bell so following a google of about:blank downloaded cwshredder and noadware. cws didn't make it through the CD write and transfer but noadware found w32.lovgate in the first few seconds but needs online registry to remove it.

Another google and downloaded Symantec's removal tool, it couldn't find it! I've also run several other applications over the last couple of days that have found absolutely nothing untoward and a couple of them I've paid good money to protect this PC!!!

As the time is approaching 1am here I'll knock it on the head for the night and see whether I feel like having another go in the morning. I'm now finding it interesting that so many applications don't live up to their claims.

I'll also give some thought to bigbazza's suggestion about spliting things up once I've decided which of the problems are worth trying to solve.

 

I think you will find that individual posts for each PC will work better for you.

As regards M$ ME O/S, most here will recommend installing W98SE, or XP, rather than re-installing ME. It is apparently a real dog, according to other posts in MG. Bazza

PS: the only thing recommended from ME, that I have seen here in MG, is to use the ME defrag in W98SE, if you haven't got a third party defragger. Bazza

 

Again, thanks for the advice, I'm finding it a bit tricky to find a good split point as either the problems or the (possible) solutions are related to or dependant on the other machines but I guess including a link back to this thread for the long version could help anyone that fancies a crack at assisting (or just put them off completely). I've also got the small problem of just which forum to post to aswell.

As said in the main post, the only machine with no (obvious) problems for about 3 years is the one running WinME .............

which in turn causes me concern as to whether I should run the applications that I'm downloading on this (XP) or the ME machines - if it ain't broke, don't fix it - but to get updates for the various apps I'll have to install and run them on one or other as the laptop can't get them for itself at present.

I'll see if I can fix anything before posting again, thanks for your time.

 

Concentrate on getting the newest, best spec PC, running XP properly. Then work through the rest starting with the one/ones with the least problems. Leave the nastiest until last. Still think the best idea is to concentrate on one at a time. This brings up the question. Why 4 PC's? I assume they are a home, or work, network? Bazza

 

a condensed version of the initial post -
1) XP mine - partner's kids must not touch! a couple of minor annoyances but nothing urgent

2) ME mine - kids use it when they're here, I only touch it once every couple of weeks to make sure all updates are installed and to run NIS. No problems that I'm aware of (and if they couldn't play Wolfenstein you can bet I'd be aware of it within seconds!)

3) Win98 Laptop partner's ex-work machine now given to daughter - not sure whether the problems are major or minor, trying to work it out here Partner's ex and kids live in the middle of nowhere, no public transport so kids are stuck at home when dad's at work, very long summer holidays for kids here in Finland.

4) Win98 P's ex's PC - went down at the same time as the laptop (so no working machine for them at home) bigger problems including everything is in Finnish which makes things a bit too complicated for me anyway. Have given up on this one.

so I'm actually leaving the nastiest to never!