security download now PC freezes

[kt]

Hi,
About a week or so ago I received the normal notification (yellow shield pop
up) from Microsoft that a number of security updates were ready for
download.
I cheked that there were about 6, and all seemed relevant, so as per normal
I clicked to download and thought nothing more of it.

Now, everytime I turn the PC on, I have a couple of minutes where it
operates normally (now) and then the yellow sheild pops up and my PC
freezes.
Running the mouse pointer over the sheild when it first pops up shows
"download 0% complete" - right or left mouse buttons clicks have no effect

Sometimes the shield goes away by itself -if I leave the PC and come back in
half an hour or so
Sometimes I can fix it (temporarily) by pressing the reset button a few
times.

I am reasonably computer literate and can usually work things out by
checking NGs, FAQ's etc, but this one has me very frustrated and I would
appreciate any advice please.

Thanks
Trevor

 

[keepout]

Hi,
About a week or so ago I received the normal notification (yellow shieldpop
up) from Microsoft that a number of security updates were ready for
download.
I cheked that there were about 6, and all seemed relevant, so as per normal

You need to know more than relevant. I quit updating the ATI stuff cause it always craps up something.
And I have an ATI AIW 9800
Trend micro sent out an auto update that froze every machine that got theupdate.Actually things just went to a crawl with trend using 100% of theresources.

I clicked to download and thought nothing more of it.

Now, everytime I turn the PC on, I have a couple of minutes where it
operates normally (now) and then the yellow sheild pops up and my PC
freezes.

takes time for my 3.2ghz dual processor to load all the startups and backgrounds.
not exactly freezing, but it does take extremely long if it's still loading startups and backgrounds. And I try and start the TV.
I normally turn the machine on, and have breakfast. The machines warmed up and done loading by then.
Alternative = Never turn it off.

As you use the machine it collects more and more garbage in the registry,startups, and backgrounds.
If you're looking for a fast startup, only guaranteed answer is
START -> RUN -> MSCONFIG -> GENERAL TAB -> uncheck LOAD STARTUP ITEMS.

Running the mouse pointer over the sheild when it first pops up shows
"download 0% complete" - right or left mouse buttons clicks have no effect

right or left mouse buttons don't have any effect on the yellow shield unless it specifically asks you to tap it.

Sometimes the shield goes away by itself -if I leave the PC and come back in
half an hour or so

is it possible it goes away after half an hour or so, because that's how long it took to do the download ?

Sometimes I can fix it (temporarily) by pressing the reset button a few
times.

I am reasonably computer literate and can usually work things out by
checking NGs, FAQ's etc, but this one has me very frustrated and I would
appreciate any advice please.

You still need more info. reset fixes it ? then it unfixes itself ? Do you have a constant problem, or an intermittent ? Does it screw up every time you boot ? No some resets and it works. intermittent means it's probably a software glitch. Hardware it'd be all the time or only under some conditions. ie: temperature.

hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and see what's running and how much resources are in useby it. System Idle process on mine is almost always around 95%. Any other process >= 50% and you have a source for overloading.

next spot to look for trouble is Admin tools, event viewer, application or system errors can point to troubles.