WinXP frequently restarts, can't do anything

Greetings,

I beg your assistance with the frequent restart program. The start may be malware, but helper from Malware forum sent be here, and I need to get the system relatively stable before I do anything. Could you please help?

Problem: few days ago computer started to frequently restart by itself, basically every time, I run some larger program. Also it is not possible to open any web pages (neither in Mozilla nor Chrome) - any page opened shows that it has crashed. Both browsers crash after ~minute of trying to use them.

I am able to use movie player (VLC) for longer period of time (>2 hours), but just as I try to run something else (Antivirus scan, Malware scan, Game, attach USB device) program crashes and computer restarts. Sometimes computer immediately restarts at user login screen or right after logging in.

When trying to run computer in safe mode, it freezes when loading drivers at mup.sys (Internet search revealed to me that this could have many causes).

Any suggestions?
Is there a way how to force it run safe mode, or to run some anti-malware tools without restarting (i've unchecked the automatic restart when something crashes, but no change)?

Would reinstalling WinXP help - or would it worsen the situation if SP3 and antivirus won't work.

TimW from malware forums suggested that I give you BSOD info. Google-fu tells me that is blue screen of death, but I do not get such. Though, I often get after restarts message that 'Windows have recovered from serious error'.


I'm running WinXP Home Edition (32bit), with Avast AV.

Thanks in advance.

 

You don't have the BSOD because you have to disable it first. Start\ rht-clck My Computer\ Properties\ Advanced System settings\ Startup and recovery and uncheck auto-restart then reboot. You will then be presented with the blue error crash screen. There will be a series of letters top left like' IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL_TO and some numbers bottom left, we just need all the letters and just the numbers outside the parentheses to the left.

It looks like your power supply is marginal IMHO, Run OCCT which will stress your machine fully. There will be graphs recorded up until the time it crashes. Post up the power supply and temperature graphs as attachments.

 

Maybe. I started Windows repair through that XP CD, but when it went to black screen to log into system it showed only " 1: C:/Windows"
But I have Windows on H: drive. When I tried to use that option anyway, it told that my admin password is invalid (i have one user only, with admin rights).

Done.

First time it restarted, there were no such series of letters, but below there was (no idea, if this helps) Technical information:
STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x8054B10D, 0xB9AD3854, 0x00000000)

Second time computer restarted on login screen and there was such letter string: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA and also below technical information:
0x00000050 (0xF1B693AU, 0x00000000, 0x8054B0BA, 0x00000000)
.

Did it. The program crashed after 5min running the test. Attached are the graphs. Hope that clears something up.

thank you guys very much in advance.

 

Nothing jumps out at me from the OCCT report. Now that you mention 0x50 error ontop of your 0x8E, run memtest86. You'll have to burn it and boot to same. If you even get one error then one of your RAM sticks is faulty, the faults usually show up very quickly.











Please don't thank me unless I solve your issue.

 

Does it mean that i have to write that program in cd and boot from that cd?

 

Yes, exactly.

 

Did so. The program starts some tests and I get quite many errors (>100 k) until Test #9 (Random number sequence), which runs forever (waited 15 min, test percentage stayed at 38% and didn't increase) accumulating more and more errors (> 1million)...

Does this helps or I have to run that test in some specific way?

 

You have to replace the faulty RAM. If you have more than one stick then remove them all but one and test each in turn until you find the culprit. Follow your motherboard manual on which slot to use, usually the closest one to the CPU. Oh, sometimes just reseating the RAM helps to refresh the contacts.

 

Wow, that really appears to be culprit. I switched the places of both of my RAM sticks, still many errors, removed one, still many errors, removed the other - no errors.

Any other activities I need to do?

 

Maybe take a pink pencil eraser to the bad stick's contacts, clean off the residue and run memtest again though it's probably toast. Other than that, only thing left to do is replace it if you have to because of speed issues. It's been a while since I've worked on an XP machine but the minimum RAM should be 512MB, 1GB even better.

At least you now know what you can/have to do, I'm happy that we drilled down to the issue. Good luck!

 

All right, I will replace it. Now tested that machine runs on (the reminding) 512 MB RAM appropriately slowly, but without any more restarts, and everything works again.

Thank you so much for your input and advice and making world a better place.

issue resolved.