Corrupted BIOS

[John Doe]

Serious PC problem, feels like I have been trying to tackle Fat
Albert single-handed. Too many symptoms, none of them making
sense. Among all of the symptoms, one vague indication was
Performance Monitor incorrectly displaying hard drive idle time.
Instead of starting at the top, its no activity indicator was a
line somewhere around 30% on the graph. After starting two days of
serious troubleshooting that went nowhere, just a few minutes ago
I finally was able to reproduce the problem, maybe. Using
Microsoft's Windows Update and starting Performance Monitor caused
a crash at least twice in a short timeframe. So, thinking (along
with many other possibilities) maybe it had to do with low-level
disk drivers (but reinstalling motherboard drivers had done no
good), I tried refreshing the BIOS. BAM... That cleared up the
Performance Monitor problem. And, I suspect a corrupted BIOS has
been the cause of everything else. That makes sense, mainly
because nothing else does. I suppose the BIOS can cause very
strange systemwide problems.

What is the most likely cause of a corrupted BIOS?

Running into a virus?

Mishandling of components?

Improper restart/shutdown?

Something else?

Next time I run into a very difficult problem, refreshing the BIOS
will be short on the list. In the past, I have always stopped
short if the BIOS version was not an update. Seriously hoping that
proves to be the solution, and that it stays fixed, getting
crashophobia here... Just like in the old days before keeping
backup copies of drive C.

 

[John Doe]

Something still obviously problematic is the fact that a few days
ago I posted a picture of Performance Monitor that shows hard
drive activity correctly displayed. Still, I know that before that
time the graph had been messed up. So, assuming the messed up
Performance Monitor graph is an indication that the BIOS is messed
up, how on Earth could the BIOS go from bad to good without help.

@#$!

The next time the graph is messed up, I will immediately restore
the BIOS, to double check that part of the theory. I guess the
BIOS could be flaky enough to fix itself, somehow. Or maybe I did
a BIOS setting change that permanently affected it. During the
troubleshooting process, at least once I had tried resetting to
BIOS fail-safe defaults.

 

[John Doe]

Figured out which BIOS settings mess up Performance Monitor hard
drive indicators (Windows XP SP3, Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L).

C2 C4
C2 C4E
State Support, Enabled instead of the default Disabled

And hopefully that was the underlying problem.

 

[Paul]

Figured out which BIOS settings mess up Performance Monitor hard
drive indicators (Windows XP SP3, Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L).

C2 C4
C2 C4E
State Support, Enabled instead of the default Disabled

And hopefully that was the underlying problem.

The BIOS flash, may have done a "clear CMOS" and
reset those settings.

It's an interesting observation, but then, why the
crash when Windows Update was running ? What does
that one mean ?

Paul

 

[John Doe]

John Doe wrote:


The BIOS flash, may have done a "clear CMOS" and reset those
settings.

And I had reset or physically cleared the BIOS, and sometimes
loaded settings from storage that probably incorrectly set
those again. So maybe the BIOS was self-corrupted.

It's an interesting observation, but then,

It was tested, and it explains why Performance Monitor has
alternated between correct and incorrect displays.

why the crash when Windows Update was running ? What
does that one mean ?

That happened maybe in combination with Performance Monitor.
Among many other freezes and spontaneous reboots with a glimpse
of a blue screen, my system crashed similarly when connected to
streaming media, twice in a short timeframe.

There were many other symptoms repeated multiple times...

.... on bootup, unable to load/initialize/whatever SERVICES.EXE,
unable to continue to the desktop

.... booting into Windows into safe mode with networking enabled,
but unable to boot in normal mode

.... upon reaching the desktop, a registry entry was corrupt and
successfully restored

.... automatic restart after the BIOS screen, immediately after the
boot to CD-ROM option

.... at one point maybe from within a utility I thought I saw
CHKDSK bad sector errors on my SDD, but after that when CHKDSK was
run from a command prompt there were no errors

If those two BIOS settings are the cause of my problems, they
should have red flashing all capital notation...

THESE BIOS SETTINGS ARE FROM HELL!
THESE BIOS SETTINGS ARE FROM HELL!
THESE BIOS SETTINGS ARE FROM HELL!
<think red flashing letters>

C2/C2E State Support
[Enabled]
CPU Will Enter C2 C2E State and Reduce Core Clock to System Bus
Ratio and VID
[Disabled]
CPU Will Not Enter C2 C2E State and Reduce Core Clock to System
Bus Ratio and VID

C4/C4E State Support...

There is nothing apparently unusual about those two settings,
they mirror the prior C1 State Support setting that is enabled by
default and is apparently harmless.

I consider the possibility of stuff like power management
settings, but as always power management and hibernate are turned
off on my system, and I do not use a screen saver. Apparently
those settings affect Windows and/or Intel CPUs very early after
booting. Apparently they can cause persistent problems, maybe
stuff is corrupted when the system spontaneously reboots.

Not likely to do with my SDD, it was removed and I am
currently using only the Raptor HDD.

Again, assuming that is the solution here. Time will tell.

 

[John Doe]

The sub setting

"C4/C4E State Support"

causes Performance Monitor to incorrectly display hard drive
performance

"\\PC\PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time"

Apparently enabling those BIOS settings can cause crashing (at least
on my system), that in turn can corrupt data.

 

[John Doe]

Just for fun, I left the C2 setting enabled since it did not cause
the immediate Performance Monitor problem the C4 setting caused.
Last of the computer doing normal stuff for a while, including a
long download from Steam. At about five-minute intervals,
Performance Monitor skipped about 6 seconds of the HDD idle time
graph. It was doing that before, shown by the pink line in the
picture I posted recently. Also, after rebooting just now, a
familiar error popped up...

Windows - Registry Recovery
One of the files containing the system's Registry data had to be
recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was
successful.

I will try disabling the C2 setting as well, to see if either or
both of that weirdness goes away.

 

[Paul]

Just for fun, I left the C2 setting enabled since it did not cause
the immediate Performance Monitor problem the C4 setting caused.
Last of the computer doing normal stuff for a while, including a
long download from Steam. At about five-minute intervals,
Performance Monitor skipped about 6 seconds of the HDD idle time
graph. It was doing that before, shown by the pink line in the
picture I posted recently. Also, after rebooting just now, a
familiar error popped up...

Windows - Registry Recovery
One of the files containing the system's Registry data had to be
recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was
successful.

I will try disabling the C2 setting as well, to see if either or
both of that weirdness goes away.

Do you ever do any offline AV scanning ? I'm still worried
it might be something like TDSS, as that is a rootkit that
hooks into atapi.sys , and who knows what that would mess up.

http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684

Paul

 

[John Doe]

Do you ever do any offline AV scanning ? I'm still worried it
might be something like TDSS, as that is a rootkit that hooks
into atapi.sys , and who knows what that would mess up.

http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684

Thanks. Sometimes I run Sysinternals RootkitRevealer. Usually I
get 16 "discrepancies", now I get 30. So I ran that program and
(without finding TDSS) allowed it to delete two of three
"suspicious" groups. After rebooting, I ran RootkitRevealer and it
detected 30 discrepancies again.

Modern PC systems are extremely complex. Will see.

 

[John Doe]

After a closer look, I think RootkitRevealer is detecting the usual
16 discrepancies here.

 

[John Doe]

C2/C2E State Support

There were many other symptoms repeated multiple times...

.... using Steam, validating a game's files, repeatedly failed,
also appears to have been corrected

I have disabled all three "C... State Support" settings.

 

[John Doe]

I'm still worried it might be... a rootkit

I think that one has been eliminated here, at least with respect to
the Windows Registry Recovery error. Getting that error again, and
there is no difference in RootkitRevealer results between the
original installation and now.

But this time there are lots of backups here that will be protected.

One recent notable change was to enable C2/C2E State Support again.

Also, installed Steam and Supreme Commander 2.

Possibly some other installation. Possibly a program or Windows
setting change. Possibly a higher-level virus.

So, assuming my Windows Registry Recovery problem (that might
foretell crashing) is not a seriously flaky motherboard/hardware, it
should be one of the above.

I will compare Add/Remove Programs snapshots between the current and
prior copies. Also making copies of logon/startup processes.

I suppose my first attempt will be to disable C2/C2E State Support
and restore a prior copy of drive C Windows, while temporarily
keeping the most recent copy that might be corrupt.

 

[John Doe]

disable C2/C2E State Support and restore a prior copy of drive C

Windows

Initially unable to reproduce the Windows Registry Recovery error.

Since enabling the subsetting C4/C4E changes the registry so that
Performance Monitor incorrectly displays hard drive idle time,
would be no surprise that C2/C2E also changes the registry. And
the registry and/or some other file(s) end up corrupted.

Maybe it is caused by interaction with my CPU or mainboard. No
telling how local the problem might be. Maybe something inside my
CPU is broken, or maybe that setting should be illegal.

Will continue installing stuff (as before but with C2 disabled)
and see if the monster pops up anyway.

 

[John Doe]

Will continue installing stuff (as before but with C2 disabled)

and see if the monster pops up anyway.

No problems. I am not sure what the deal was with my SDD, but I am
sure that the BIOS settings messed up my system royally. Again, in
a nutshell...

A conglomerate of weird errors/problems, some might have been
caused by corrupted files (like the registry), including this
error.

Windows - Registry Recovery
One of the files containing the system's Registry data had to be
recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was
successful.

The BIOS settings from hell.

C2/C2E State Support
C4/C4E State Support

My system as it was.

Windows XP SP3 with patches
GA-EP45-UD3L (motherboard)
Q9550 (CPU)
32 GB OCZ Vertex SDD, SATA
150 GB Raptor, SATA
ASUS CD/DVD