RCP and Internet Problem (Freezing Desktop and Tasbar)

Hi everyone

I'm having a major issue and was put on to Major Geeks by a friend of mine. After searching the forums and trying to solve the problem myself it seems that I've come out exactly where I started.

The full story:
About a month ago I left my computer downloading (using utorrent) whilst I went off to class. I got back home to find the taskbar had frozen (the mouse still moved) - thinking it was a typical Windows thing to happen I just rebooted. Only, about 30sec after everything had loaded it froze again! ...and again and again. And the mouse was also freezing shortly after the taskbar. I tried accessing Task Manager and this would work so long as I did it straight away.

I found that shutting down the svchost's prevented the freezing (but I had to type "shutdown -a" into "run" to stop a window counting down to restart)

Fearing malware I did virus scans (Avast), spyware scans (Adaware and Spybot) and came up with nothing. However, I noticed that the Avast resident shield was off (odd because I'm so cautious about this!) and no matter what I tried it wouldn't switch back on. I also noticed various programs that automatically update were having issues quoting issues to do with RCP (including Avast)

Anyway, I also checked out the procedure that this forum offers for protecting your computer and removing spyware prior to posting... all to no avail.

So last night I reinstalled XP Home Edition (the second time in the last week!!) left the LAN cable unplugged until I had installed Zone Alarm, SpyBlaster, A-Squared, Avast and SpyBot. Everything was running great. No worries. And then i plugged in the LAN cable... BAM!! As I'm navigating to the home of AVG (using Firefox) my windows freeze, followed by the taskbar... it continues to do this even after I restart and don't connect the LAN cable :cry

I'm at a complete loss now! I've had my computer for a few years and it's never had a problem. And now, even having done two complete reinstalls I seem to have the same problem popping up.

Sorry about the lengthy post...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! I'm not technologically-illiterate but this seems to be out of my league (I just hope it's a minor fix that I'll "ahhhHHHHHHhhhhhh" about if someone can pin-point it)

Thanks in advance

 

How exactly is your computer being hooked up to the internet line?

For example, router, switch, hub, cable or dsl modem?

Any other computers connected with this computer in any form shape or way?

 

I've got it plugged directly into the DSL router... we've got two other computers that also connect via it (one via wireless, the other also via LAN).

I've also heard that Windows Automatic Update has caused issues with other computers and the reason behind all the svchost's... could this be related also?

Thanks for the response

 

From what your telling me it sounds like we might be having the svchost.exe usage issue. I currently do not have the fix with me but I will have it in a couple of days. I will post it as soon as I get the chance.

 

Update: All is working fine... so long as I have Windows Automatic Update disabled. As soon as I enable it everything freezes... and it's not good enough to disable it after the fact - I have to do a system restore.

So after a series of trial and error I think my problem has been narrowed down to this.

Any ideas how to get round it? I'd much rather have the updates going automatically - saves me the trouble having to do it all manually.

Your svchost.exe fix intrigues me still...

 

Sorry about such a late response. I've been so busy with other things.

Anyways in this forum the steps that Bob Stoolfire gives. I have done this several times and works like a charm.

Let me know if you need more help regarding his guide or if the issue is still not resolved.

Once again, sorry for the really late response. Hope you haven't gotten to frustrated.

 

Where abouts do I find those steps?

 

Sorry about that, here are the steps:

1. Click Start->Run, type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click OK.
2. Double click the service "Automatic Updates".
3. Click on the Log On tab, please ensure the option "Local System account" is selected and the option "Allow service to interact with desktop" is unchecked.

4. Check if this service has been enabled on the listed Hardware Profile. If not, please click the Enable button to enable it.
5. Click on the tab "General "; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic". Then please click the button "Start" under "Service Status" to start the service.
6. Repeat the above steps with the other service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

Step 4: Re-register Windows Update components and Clear the corrupted Windows Update temp folder
================================

1. Click on Start and then click Run,
2. In the open field type "REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL" (without quotation marks) and press Enter.
3. When you receive the "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" message, click OK.
4. Please repeat these steps for each of the following commands:

REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL

After the above steps are finished. Sicne temporary folder of Windows Update may be corrupted. We can refer to the following steps to rename this folder that

1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.

net stop WuAuServ (This command may fail so if it does just skip it)

(note, you might need to reboot before the net stop command will work)

2. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.
3. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SDold.
4. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.

net start WuAuServ

 

Well here's a problem to wrap your head around... I followed all those steps, restarted, turned on automatic updates, restarted and BANG - computer froze. Restarted in safe mode and rolled back to my restore point that I made just before making those changes.

Thanks so much for sticking with me through all of this - I very much appreciate it!!

Any other thoughts??

 

How many years old is your computer in general and how old is the hardrive? Have you upgraded your memory in it (A.K.A. "Ram")?

Just for verification, when your in Safe Mode your computer never freezes?

When your in Normal mode it freezes?

Also when you followed those steps...were you in Normal Mode or Safe Mode?

Also, if you were to unplug your LAN cable and boot into Normal Mode will your computer freeze?

Can you do a Ctrl-Alt-Delete and pull up Task Manager? If so can you under the "Processes" tab and look under the section "CPU" and see if something is showing "99" or some other high number...if so record from left to right exactly the details of the process.

Hopefully this will be able to help me diagnose the issue.

 

With the help of a mate we put my computer together from scratch about, let's see, two and a half years ago. I'm running to sticks of 512 DDR ram and it's been more than sufficient for all my gaming requirements.

Correct, when in Safe mode all seems to work fine.

When I followed those steps I was running normally (not in Safe Mode)... should I have been?

Here I'll just clarify something. My computer is running normally now so long as I keep Automatic Updates disabled. This means I can surf the net no worries. However, as soon as I enable Automatic Updates everything freezes. From memory, it doesn't matter if the cable is plugged in or not... if I enabled Automatic Updates things freeze.

Unfortunately I'd thought about the Task Manager also - figured a freeze may be due to some my resources being used up... but nope. Just before the freeze everything there's no major demands, afterwards even the Task Manager locks up. The HD light on my case isn't even on at this point... it flashes now and then (as it normally does) but that's it - it seems that once things have frozen all is well... I just can't do anything.

I hope this is of some use

Cheers

 

Were you able to rename and or delete the SoftwareDistrubution folder in the Windows directory? You said as if you did and I just wanted to verify because that could be causing the problem. Also did you re-register each individual one of those .dll files or did you only do the first one as they mentioned. The reason I ask about this stuff is this is the only solution that makes since to me. However, we cannot verify for sure since it seems to take too much control over your performance to know for sure.

Anyways, I'm at a lost for the time being but, always thinking of the solution. Good luck.

 

Sorry about the delay - uni's back and life is hectic again.

I was able to rename the SoftwareDistrubution folder with no hassles and I re-registered all but one of the DLL files... I wasn't able to one of these three: REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL (sorry, can't remember which one)
But I did try to re-register each one.

Thanks for all you help!! You're awesome!!!