Weird problem with win7

Spizz

Spizz

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I wonder if anyone can help me.

I have an Acer laptop 5742g model running 64 bit windows 7 home premium. Until yesterday, it has been running nicely for a year or so, but when I started yesterday morning, it has hanging for about 5 minutes, apparently frozen, and then it ran normally after I got a message about not being able to find the server???

The message says it can't find the server, click 'switch to' or 'retry'. I've no idea what it's talking about.

So of course I think virus, but the weird thing is, I'm not on any network and I hadn't been connected to the internet since Saturday on my 3g modem. Since Saturday, I had streamed a couple of movies to my ipad through my S2 using air video on Sunday, played a couple of hours of Half Life 2 on Monday, and streamed more video on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it's like this now with no internet at all. And I've loaded no new software or changed any installed programs.

So anyway, I did a full boot scan using Avast and a full system scan using Malwarebytes and they turned up nothing. I never really download on this laptop because I'm in Chad at the moment, and as I said, it's a 3G modem but the networks are shocking (EDGE when it works). Even when I connect, it's like a read of myBB or some news and facebook, I never download because the network is too unstable anyway.

So I restored to an automatic save point from 6th April. It started okay first time, then does this hanging thing the second and every other time.

I disabled the wireless adaptor, an Atheros AR5B97, incase it was somehow related. Same story, hang and freeze. Then after 5 minutes, it's ok. Downloaded the latest driver for it, still the same.

I switched off all of my programs that run on start-up. Steam, Air Video, Splashtop, Samsung All-Share. Same story.

It starts as normal, the wifi icon in the system tray starts to 'spin' and then freezes. If I click Start for example, nothing happens for a minute or so, then it opens, but that is frozen too. It then takes 5 or 10 minutes until this box comes up saying it can't find the server. Sometimes it takes a few minutes before this will close, but then everything is okay again.

Everything screams virus, but the checkers are good and I haven't been connected anyway.

One time, before I restored a saved backup, it told me during boot that my Windows was not original. The restore changed that though and is still okay.

I'm thinking get my stuff off and format while I can. But apart from anything else, I don't have a copy of windows home premium to reinstall (OEM, no discs in the box). I've got a bought copy of ultimate that is running on my old laptop (now with my son) so no doubt the code won't work anyway.

So any ideas good people? Sorry about the long post, but ffs, I'm going nuts.

EDIT: Sorry, accidentally posted to wrong forum. Mods, move to 'Software' please before someone jumps down my throat, unless of course it's my wireless adaptor that's the problem :whistle:
 
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Check the hard drive SMART status and do a scan for bad sectors.
 
ponder said:
Check the hard drive SMART status and do a scan for bad sectors.
Click to expand...

+1

Also try this

This one is a head scratcher.
Do you have the new service pack?
Try a MSE scan
Other
http://www.emsisoft.com (No 1 on VB bulletin)
or http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/eek/
http://www.coranti.com/ (No 2 VB Bulletin)

Then run a hardware diagnostics that flex your hardware and see what happens
Burn in test
http://passmark.com/products/bit.htm

Aida 64
http://www.aida64.com/

This might have helped but most of the avenues does not work with the OEM version
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Autoplay repair wizard
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=2648

This might help
http://www.ehow.com/how_5325952_fix-internet-explorer-dns-error.html
 
Great stuff, thanks for the pointers chaps. I haven't got the new service pack yet but I'm back in SA on Thursday when I'll also download some of these heavy files. Just haven't got the means here.

But now I'll check out the SMART status when I get back to my room, try a MSE scan, try the autoplay autofix, run the BurnInTest which I'm downloading now (says 25mins for 8mb on this 128kb/s line between 10 of us ffs). The others are too heavy to download here so if I don't have any luck, I'll close the lid and wait until I'm back home on Thursday.

Should add I'm using my works laptop in a site office in the middle of the frikkin desert at the moment. The problem is on my own laptop back at the digs.
 
I used to have an Acer Travelmate 5730 which started behaving oddly, similar to yours, after I drove over it by mistake (haha, I should probably blog about that). Not that this info helps much, but I thought I'd share, nevertheless.

OK, so, I reckon your wireless adaptor is probably damaged/faulty. I would uninstall it, and all the drivers and related software, and disable it from Device Manager. See if that helps. If it does, then you've narrowed down the problem.

You should probably also try a good registry cleaner (beware - lots of malware out there posing as registry cleaners). Last I heard Glary Utilities was pretty good, but I can't vouch for it.

If the above doesn't work, then re-install Windows. You look like you could do with some fun in your life. Download a copy from www.torrentz.eu to test with. Remember to delete it when your testing is done. :whistle:

If you haven't formatted your PC for over a year, then I would definitely do it. It's probably going to be quicker and less effort to format your PC and reload Windows and all your apps and games, then to try to figure out WTF is going on, and how to fix it. Plus formatting will also reduce the probability of further problems occuring (which is bound to happen soon - thanks Microsoft).
 
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Ok, so I think I fixed it at last.

I noticed that the icon for Intel Rapid Storage Technology in the system tray (hidden unless you click on the up arrow) had a warning triangle, but when I clicked on it, it opened normally.

Of course it took 5 or 10 minutes for the system to become stable enough to access these icons and I thought it not starting/loading was a symptom of the computer hanging on start up, especially how it started normally when I clicked it and the warning triangle disappeared.

So to check (without clicking on the triangle which seemed to fix the problem), I rebooted, waited until the system was stable after the usual freezing and hanging, then accessed the program through the start menu (instead of the system tray icon) where there was an icon under the Intel folder called Intel Rapid Storage Technology.

This brought up a warning saying that IAStorUI has not started and there is a problem. The system tray icon still had the warning triangle.

So I went to the Control Panel, Administrators Tools or whatever it's called, selected Services and found a list of processes. I found IAStorUI, and changed it's status from 'delayed start' to automatic, rebooted and voila, everything is running as normal.

I've rebooted 100 times and everytime there's no problems and the icon for Intel Rapid Storage Technology shows a little tick and reports it running normally.

Now I'm not sure why it happened suddenly or even if it was meant to be changed to automatic, but it'll do until I get home next week where I think I'll take all my stuff off and do a format.

But thanks for the pointers chaps. Much appreciated :)
 
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Saajid said:
I used to have an Acer Travelmate 5730 which started behaving oddly, similar to yours, after I drove over it by mistake
Click to expand...


LOL What were you trying to load a new driver on it ???
 
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