MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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2 edits |  [Vista] Odd Problems
It seems that ever since I moved to Vista, I seem to be having odd little problems which are very annoying. Usually a reboot fixed the problems but then more odd little problems happen.
I have a Dell system. I have always built my own systems but decided to go with a Dell as I didn't want to deal with the hassle of building a system. I have contacted Dell many times and I also had most of my computer replaced including hard drive and RAM. I have also reformatted many times as well.
These programs are completely random and usually closing/reopening the program fixes it, or a reboot does. Because of these program, I have to reboot every couple of days.
Tonight I was surfing Craigslist and when I clicked on an e-mail like, I got this odd error. I closed Outlook and reopened it and it still did not resolve the issue. I rebooted, it fixed it. I never got this error before.
Tonight I was on ABC.COM watching a TV show and had it in full screen mode. I got a phone call and clicked the pause button and the movie wouldn't pause. I tried to get out of full screen mode and nothing happened. I actually had to end task on the movie player in order to get out of the movie.
This morning I was trying to copy/paste some text and the text I pasted was strange letters and numbers.
I haven't been able to use Norton on my system for some time now. It will not run a full scan as I just get a internal program error.
Dreamscene also is very unstable. If I set it as my background, it seems to crash at random times as I get a popup that says it's not responding.
Windows sidebar is also unstable. Sometimes half of the news gadget goes missing.
A couple nights ago I was sorting out my e-mail in outlook and when I clicked on a e-mail once to slect it to read it in the preview plane, it would pop it up in a new window instead as if I double clicked it. Sometimes if I get the X in the corner, it would close the window and also outlook as well.
Winamp locks up at random times when trying to open files.
If I leave Internet Explorer opened for more than 48 hours, it will lock up when trying to open a new tab, or I will start getting strange graphic glitches on internet explorer and the start bar.
Google Toolbar will sometimes glitch out and become larger than it's supposed to be, almost as if having two google bars.
My monitor webcam (dell) also bugs out, vista doesn't detect it sometimes and other times it keeps freezing and is very delayed.
I cannot seem to use Adobe Premier to create videos as the program crashs (this program has quit working) It doesn't matter what format the video is in, it happens all the time.
Edit: I am trying to download camstudio and when I click on SAVE the dialog just disappears. If I click on OPEN/RUN it just disappears and the program never starts. It's also taking me 10 seconds to just open a new tab in internet explorer. |
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BinaryXtreme
join:2004-04-20
Sparks, NV | Did you install a new upgrade or a fresh install? Which version of Vista did you buy and what are your computer specs? |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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1 edit | said by BinaryXtreme  :Did you install a new upgrade or a fresh install? Which version of Vista did you buy and what are your computer specs? I have a Dell XPS 420 (I got tired of building my systems) which has a Quad Core Q6600 Processor and 4 GB of Ram and a 750 GB Hard Drive.
Dell preloaded the OS (Vista Ultimate) and I started using that. After having these problems, I decided to do a image restore. I still had the same issues so I called Dell for hardware troubleshooting. The Dell Diag program found no hardware issues but they went ahead and sent a tech out and swapped out pretty much the guts of my computer (Ram, Hard Drive, etc)
The new hard drive also had a image loaded on it. I started off using it but again, same problems. I reloaded the image, same thing. At this point I decided maybe it had something to do with the image and used my Windows Vista DVD and did a complete format of the drive and installed Vista as a clean install. I used the Dell Driver CD. Again, same issues.
I then did ANOTHER format (which is what, 6 now?) using Drivers from the DELL Website hoping they would be more up to date than what's on the CD. Exact same problems.
I have tried SP1 but did not help. I even flashed my BIOS to the current update and still same issue.
I even tried getting drivers directly from Intel, ATI, NVidia, etc instead of Dell. Still, same result.
At this point, I am not sure what the problem is anymore. The only thing I can think is that it's an issue with the operating system.
The only thing I have NOT tried was installing Vista on one of my spare computers and see how it runs on it and see if I have the same issues. Now, I did "build" my mom a "new" computer and I loaded Vista on it. It's a much slower system than mine, it's only a Single Core AMD and only has 1 GB of Ram. She's also had a few odd things happen but not anywhere near my level. Her Internet Explorer works far much better than mine ever has. My internet explorer keeps stalling when loading webpages. |
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tcharp
T C
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 ·NTS Communications
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| It sounds like you might be having some sort of memory problems. I'm not sure what Dell uses but it's probably crap.
Windows Media player has some known problems in Vista. Mainly that it has been known to not quit when you close the program. Also, you should know that dreamscene is sort of a resource hog and may slow down your system unless you have very good video capabilities.
However, it sounds like you are having a far more general problem than any of the ones I have mentioned. Has Dell swapped the mobo? Can you get them to send you a DVD with the OS only (without all of their "bonus" stuff) on it?
-TC
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BinaryXtreme
join:2004-04-20
Sparks, NV
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| reply to MJimLay
Seems you have done everything I would have advised. Have you heard your hard drive clicking or making any loud noises? Also, have you been able to apply Windows latest updates? Are you running virus protection and checked your logs? I would also try removing a stick of ram and seeing if you can see any difference. You don't happen to have any devices like a DVD player installed and connected to your motherboard with the molex disconnected? Just a few things to throw out there... |
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auggy
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1 edit | reply to MJimLay
Also, can you check here?:
Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Performance Information and Tools > Advanced Tools
In the Advanced Tools, under "Performance issues" are there any link(s) that may be related to the issues you are having?
If so, can you click these links for more info.
Also, take a look at the following report:
Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Performance Information and Tools > Advanced tools > Generate a system health report
Is there any info in the system health report that may relate to the issues you are having?
Also, are there any events recorded in the Event Viewer that may be related? |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| reply to tcharp
said by tcharp :It sounds like you might be having some sort of memory problems. I'm not sure what Dell uses but it's probably crap. Windows Media player has some known problems in Vista. Mainly that it has been known to not quit when you close the program. Also, you should know that dreamscene is sort of a resource hog and may slow down your system unless you have very good video capabilities. However, it sounds like you are having a far more general problem than any of the ones I have mentioned. Has Dell swapped the mobo? Can you get them to send you a DVD with the OS only (without all of their "bonus" stuff) on it? -TC I have the Windows DVD. It came with my system. I have formatted and installed with that DVD. It doesn't include anything extra and doesn't have any drivers. I have another Dell CD with Drivers
They did not swap the motherboard. When they replaced the ram and hard drive, I asked them to replace the motherboard but they refused.
I rarely use Windows Media Player and when I have used it, I never had any problems. As for Dreamscene, I have a pretty decent system and didn't notice any slow down while running Dreamscene, even while gaming. The reason I stopped using it was because it was always crashing. |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| reply to BinaryXtreme
said by BinaryXtreme :Seems you have done everything I would have advised. Have you heard your hard drive clicking or making any loud noises? Also, have you been able to apply Windows latest updates? Are you running virus protection and checked your logs? I would also try removing a stick of ram and seeing if you can see any difference. You don't happen to have any devices like a DVD player installed and connected to your motherboard with the molex disconnected? Just a few things to throw out there... My hard drive doesn't make any odd sounds. However, I sometimes have A LOT of hard drive activity like my SWAP file is being used. It gets rather annoying sometimes because my hard drive will swap for 30+ minutes. I have all current updates installed. I use Norton Internet Security and I haven't been able to run a full scan as the program crashes before the scan is even complete. There is nothing in the logs and I am pretty safe what I do on my computer.
I will try removing a stick of ram, that's a good idea 
I have several devices attached to the motherboard. I have a LCD screen on my tower which is connected to my motherboard (USB I think) and I also have a "Xcellerator" device as well. I have a Blu-Ray Drive and a DVD-RW Drive. |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| reply to auggy
said by auggy :Also, can you check here?: Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Performance Information and Tools > Advanced Tools In the Advanced Tools, under "Performance issues" are there any link(s) that may be related to the issues you are having? If so, can you click these links for more info. Also, take a look at the following report: Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Performance Information and Tools > Advanced tools > Generate a system health report Is there any info in the system health report that may relate to the issues you are having? Also, are there any events recorded in the Event Viewer that may be related? The only thing listed was "Performance can be improved by changing visual settings. View Details" which suggests me to go to Vista Basic theme. There was also a link that said "View details in the event log" but it would not open when I clicked the link.
I ran a system health report and a couple things came up. The first one which I was already aware of. Low hard drive space (however, this has only been in the past few days as I had to format my moms computer and copied all her data to mine. My problems have been going on for much longer)
The next "problem" was Memory. It has a yellow mark and say's I am using 73% of my ram and have 855 MB Free. However, I don't have much opened right now. I have IE opened with 4 tabs, Winamp playing a MIDI file, Firefox with 1 tab opened, Outlook 2007. I also have a notepad open, a folder opened, and my chat clients (AIM, Yahoo, MSN) which IMHO isn't a whole lot of demanding stuff. The rest of the stuff is driver related like LogMeIn, mousesuite, webcam, deamon tools, java, etc.
I did find the following in the event log:
The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.
The Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal Reader service service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal Reader service service to connect.
DCOM got error "1053" attempting to start the service usnjsvc with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{98AC5C33-EE18-4EC2-BE25-3B16EE8F75F1}
The print spooler failed to reopen an existing printer connection because it could not read the configuration information from the registry key S-1-5-18\Printers\Connections. The print spooler could not open the registry key. This can occur if the registry key is corrupt or missing, or if the registry recently became unavailable.
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{8BC3F05E-D86B-11D0-A075-00C04FB68820}
to the user MichaelImlay-PC\Michael Imlay SID (S-1-5-21-3588236352-227558188-1641676470-1000) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services
The server {0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.
Those are just from today. There are also a ton of duplicates to some of these. |
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auggy
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1 edit | said by MJimLay :I did find the following in the event log: The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period. That may indicate a problem with Intel's "Matrix Storage Manager".
Make sure you have the latest iastor.sys driver, either from Dell or Intel:
»www.intel.com/support/chipsets/i···5783.htm
You can check the version of the iastor.sys by right-clicking the iastor.sys in the C:\Windows\System32\drivers folder > Properties > Details.
Hopefully that will resolve the stability problems you have been having.
Some of your issues may be related to other third party software/drivers.
I noticed you appear to have a problem with NIS. What version of NIS do you have installed? |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| said by auggy :said by MJimLay :I did find the following in the event log: The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period. That may indicate a problem with Intel's "Matrix Storage Manager". Make sure you have the latest iastor.sys driver, either from Dell or Intel: » www.intel.com/support/chipsets/i···5783.htmYou can check the version of the iastor.sys by right-clicking the iastor.sys in the C:\Windows\System32\drivers folder > Properties > Details. Hopefully that will resolve the stability problems you have been having. Some of your issues may be related to other third party software/drivers. I noticed you appear to have a problem with NIS. What version of NIS do you have installed? Thanks! That might explain some other issues I have been having as well... I will update the drivers from Intel.
As for NIS, I am not sure but I believe it's 2008. This is the error I am getting. |
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auggy
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1 edit | Good luck with the updated drivers. After updating, can you check and make sure that the "\Device\Ide\iaStor0" events no longer occur.
With NIS there is the following article from Symantec with a workaround you could try and see if it helps any:
»service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/na···16492806
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| said by auggy :Good luck with the updated drivers. After updating, can you check and make sure that the "\Device\Ide\iaStor0" events no longer occur. With NIS there is the following article from Symantec with a workaround you could try and see if it helps any: » service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/na···16492806 Well, I uninstalled Norton Internet Security and my computer is unbelieveably faster... It feels as if I just upgraded from a 486 to a Pentium II. Internet explorer tabs load instantly instead of waiting for 5-10 seconds, webpages load instantly instead of then stalling/locking up. It's almost night and day.
I think I am going to switch to AVG. I never really cared for Norton much and I've had problems with it in the past. |
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Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| No! Current AVG is VERY SLOW and will also bog your computer down. Either use Avast or Avira. Both are excellent and won't bog down the computer. If you have never tried both, then down a 30 day trial of each and see which you like best. Or just try the free versions of both.
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"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| said by Mele20 :No! Current AVG is VERY SLOW and will also bog your computer down. Either use Avast or Avira. Both are excellent and won't bog down the computer. If you have never tried both, then down a 30 day trial of each and see which you like best. Or just try the free versions of both. HUH?!? I've used AVG for years and even installed it on PII systems running XP and never had any problems with it. Norton is the hog, not AVG. Plus it's a well known program as well. I never even heard of Avast or Avira |
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SipSizzurp
Fo' Shizzle
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| reply to MJimLay
I've had a couple of Dells and a home made PC based on the Core 2 duo that have some goofy stability and system errors. I've not yet tried the MICROCODE patch, but I am going to soon. It is a patch that helps the OS cope with errors caused by minor hardware errors in the CPU itself. If you still have problems after removing Norton then you might give it a try. Maybe somebody else knows some more about it.
»support.microsoft.com/kb/936357
»www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=er···aq=f&oq=
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I spent most of my money on Women and Beer, and the rest I just wasted ! |
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Mele20
Premium
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Hilo, HI
| reply to MJimLay
Don't you read the Security forum here? Long popular threads about AVG latest version and many jumping ship because it is so slow. One problem was fixed by AVG and that helped but still many, who were strong fans in the past, seem to have abandoned it because of adverse computer performance. The Link Scanner problem caused a ruckus on the internet and even though after HEAVY pressure, and ONLY after heavy pressure from website owners and AVG users, AVG finally reluctantly fixed it, but that left a bad taste in many former loyal AVG users mouths and they did not return to AVG. Here's one thread on AVG 8's slowness:
»AVG 8 EXTREMELY slow?
Avira is currently rated the number one Antivirus application by AVComparatives and Virus Bulletin. It's the best AV I have ever used and I have used most of them. Very light to use. Avast is also one of the top AV currently. Both have free versions and many folks using AVG moved to one of them after the current AVG was released. With both of them you can choose which modules to install so you get only what you want (like I don't want a mail scanner).
»www.avira.com/en/company_news/av···g08.html
»www.free-av.com/en/products/index.html
»www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
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"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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1 edit | reply to SipSizzurp
said by SipSizzurp :I've had a couple of Dells and a home made PC based on the Core 2 duo that have some goofy stability and system errors. I've not yet tried the MICROCODE patch, but I am going to soon. It is a patch that helps the OS cope with errors caused by minor hardware errors in the CPU itself. If you still have problems after removing Norton then you might give it a try. Maybe somebody else knows some more about it. » support.microsoft.com/kb/936357» www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=er···aq=f&oq= Now THAT is COOL!!! I am going to try this as I am using a Intel Quad processor. I also forwarded this to my uncle which also just got a Dell with a Intel processor.
Edit: I guess I spoke too soon, "This update does not apply to your system" |
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MJimLay
aka FlexBaud
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| reply to Mele20
said by Mele20 :Don't you read the Security forum here? Long popular threads about AVG latest version and many jumping ship because it is so slow. One problem was fixed by AVG and that helped but still many, who were strong fans in the past, seem to have abandoned it because of adverse computer performance. The Link Scanner problem caused a ruckus on the internet and even though after HEAVY pressure, and ONLY after heavy pressure from website owners and AVG users, AVG finally reluctantly fixed it, but that left a bad taste in many former loyal AVG users mouths and they did not return to AVG. Here's one thread on AVG 8's slowness: » AVG 8 EXTREMELY slow?Avira is currently rated the number one Antivirus application by AVComparatives and Virus Bulletin. It's the best AV I have ever used and I have used most of them. Very light to use. Avast is also one of the top AV currently. Both have free versions and many folks using AVG moved to one of them after the current AVG was released. With both of them you can choose which modules to install so you get only what you want (like I don't want a mail scanner). » www.avira.com/en/company_news/av···g08.html» www.free-av.com/en/products/index.html» www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html Whoa. I didn't know that. I don't keep up with that forum as well as I should. Thanks I think I will try one of those out instead! |
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Mele20
Premium
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Hilo, HI
1 edit | You're welcome.
Make sure Norton is completely gone and I mean completely. Run the Norton Removal Tool. Both Avira and Avast do not like any remnant of Norton to remain on the computer. They may appear to run ok but you might have an odd problem and it might very well be traced to a remnant of Norton still on the computer.
Try both. They both have 30 day free trials. I think it comes down mostly to which GUI you like best. They both have excellent detection and both have excellent support forums so it does come down to which feels best to you more than anything else.
EDIT: Avira Personal Premium and Avira Suite are both 20% off this week only. I'm not sure if that is available to everyone or just those using the free version. If you use the free version there is an ad with the updates and the ad this morning had a link to 20% off during this week. This ad will probably be shown all week if you are using the free version.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason |
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