PC Unstable

Scoflo

MickG - your post with the suggestions of what to run from your toolkit has disapeared?

spakkker

Can you get combofix, http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

You should save to desktop ideally, then run it

Knarf44

Although Combofix is a solution to many problems it should only be used by someone who knows what they are doing as the resultant logfile it produces can be difficult to interpret. Therefore, if it hasn't fixed the problem it can be difficult to know what further action should be recommended.

In my opinion, Scottishflower should now think seriously about doing a clean reinstall of the XP Operating System but as as been previously stated this needs to be done with great care and attention if it is to be successful, especially on an older machine.

Before embarking on this course of action, Scottishflower should save any data she doesn't want to lose to CD/DVD, Pen drive or external hard drive. Second, she should backup her system's drivers. The free program Double Driver will do this and later restore them.

Next, she should check that she has an original XP installation disk and knows her activation key details. Also she should have any other installation disks such as printer, digital camera etc.

Next, I assume her original XP disc is either an SP1 or SP2 version. Therefore, she'll need to manually install SP3 after the OS has installed. SP3 can be downloaded here. It's a large file (316MB) so it'll take a while, save it to a pen drive or CD.

Next, she should check Network settings and make a note of the Computer Name, Workgroup (if applicable) and TCP/IP settings. Research how to restore these settings too.

When ready to start, change the Boot order in BIOS to CD/DVD, pop the installation CD into the CD/DVD Rom and reboot.

When you have successfully reinstalled the OS and reactivated it, reinstalled your drivers etc you'll need to go to Windows Update. There's been something like 80 odd updates since SP3 so be prepared to spend some time waiting for them to download and install.

I did all this on an old XP machine last week but over a 2 day period.

spakkker

What's to lose by running combo ? Nothing if you're going to say re-install next step. I've run combo a few times-no problems .
If it doesn't fix it no big deal and it takes less than 10 mins for me to run it.

edit: Add. inf. - http://www.rarst.net/software/combofix/

Scoflo

spakkker wrote: »

What's to lose by running combo ? Nothing if you're going to say re-install next step. I've run combo a few times-no problems .
If it doesn't fix it no big deal and it takes less than 10 mins for me to run it.

edit: Add. inf. - http://www.rarst.net/software/combofix/

Gonna do it and them Im getting a man in. Im driven nuts.