Post clean install "not responding" situations increased

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Recently ended having to do a clean install of XP Pro. Everything went fine
including all the updates to all the apps and to XP (i.e. from what I can
tell I'm current except for an IE7 upgrade which I have yet to allow to be
installed - began the reason I needed to do the clean install so I'm a bit
gun shy.)

Ever since completing the install I've had a radically higher occurrence of
apps not responding. "Radical" in this case means every couple days or so
vs. every couple months or so before the install.

The apps are not exotic and include mostly Office 2003 apps including
Outlook, but the failure frequency for those apps may simply be because they
are most often used.

The only thing unusual that might be relevant was that when I first went to
get updates from MS (and there were quite a few as you can imagine) I noticed
after they were applied that about a dozen of them indicated that they
failed. I've assumed up to now that that could have been normal (component
not installed, or some other reason).

When I go to have MS search for needed updates I says things are current.

Any ideas?

Tom
 
tcarp said:
Recently ended having to do a clean install of XP Pro. Everything
went fine including all the updates to all the apps and to XP (i.e.
from what I can tell I'm current except for an IE7 upgrade which I
have yet to allow to be installed - began the reason I needed to do
the clean install so I'm a bit gun shy.)

Ever since completing the install I've had a radically higher
occurrence of apps not responding. "Radical" in this case means
every couple days or so vs. every couple months or so before the
install.

The apps are not exotic and include mostly Office 2003 apps
including Outlook, but the failure frequency for those apps may
simply be because they are most often used.

The only thing unusual that might be relevant was that when I first
went to get updates from MS (and there were quite a few as you can
imagine) I noticed after they were applied that about a dozen of
them indicated that they failed. I've assumed up to now that that
could have been normal (component not installed, or some other
reason).

When I go to have MS search for needed updates I says things are
current.
Click to expand...

When you performed your 'clean install' - were you up to SP2 before you ever
connected the machine to the internet?
Was your firewall enabled?
 
:

When you performed your 'clean install' - were you up to SP2 before you ever
connected the machine to the internet?
Click to expand...

Yes, the upgrade was already SP2.
Was your firewall enabled?
Click to expand...

I pretty sure that it was. I remember making a note to install my antivirus
software (NAV) before much else. I have a 1% doubt and will go back to do a
full scan just to make sure.

As we discuss this keep in mind that there's always the possibility of a new
problem. One thing that happened a couple times is an error (which I haven't
captured yet) describing a memory read failure or something like that. There
was no new hardware installed, including memory, coincident with the clean
install, but....

I'll look around for a utility to test memory and, if there is a problem,
eliminate that variable next.

Thanks

Tom
 
tcarp said:
Recently ended having to do a clean install of XP Pro. Everything
went fine including all the updates to all the apps and to XP (i.e.
from what I can tell I'm current except for an IE7 upgrade which I
have yet to allow to be installed - began the reason I needed to do
the clean install so I'm a bit gun shy.)

Ever since completing the install I've had a radically higher
occurrence of apps not responding. "Radical" in this case means
every couple days or so vs. every couple months or so before the
install.

The apps are not exotic and include mostly Office 2003 apps
including Outlook, but the failure frequency for those apps may
simply be because they are most often used.

The only thing unusual that might be relevant was that when I first
went to get updates from MS (and there were quite a few as you can
imagine) I noticed after they were applied that about a dozen of
them indicated that they failed. I've assumed up to now that that
could have been normal (component not installed, or some other
reason).

When I go to have MS search for needed updates I says things are
current.
Click to expand...

Shenan said:
When you performed your 'clean install' - were you up to SP2
before you ever connected the machine to the internet?

Was your firewall enabled?
Click to expand...
Yes, the upgrade was already SP2.

I pretty sure that it (firewall) was (enabled). I remember making a
note to install my antivirus software (NAV) before much else.
I have a 1% doubt and will go back to do a full scan just to make
sure.

As we discuss this keep in mind that there's always the possibility
of a new problem. One thing that happened a couple times is an
error (which I haven't captured yet) describing a memory read
failure or something like that. There was no new hardware
installed, including memory, coincident with the clean install,
but....

I'll look around for a utility to test memory and, if there is a
problem, eliminate that variable next.
Click to expand...

Go to each hardware manufacturer's web site (for each piece of hardware) and
download/install the latest driver.

Get the motherboard/chipset first...
Then I would do network card, video card and sound card.
All other devices after those.

Even if you think the device is working fine - you are not hurting
anything - as there could be a driver out there with a fix for your issue.

Seeing a memory read error could be a sign of all sorts of things. You may
want to just swap the location of your memory chips - if you can.

Microsoft has a "memory tester"..
They explain the procedure here:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Memtest86 - A Stand-alone Memory Diagnostic tool
http://www.memtest86.com/
 
Go to each hardware manufacturer's web site (for each piece of hardware) and
download/install the latest driver.

Get the motherboard/chipset first...
Then I would do network card, video card and sound card.
All other devices after those.

Even if you think the device is working fine - you are not hurting
anything - as there could be a driver out there with a fix for your issue.

Seeing a memory read error could be a sign of all sorts of things. You may
want to just swap the location of your memory chips - if you can.

Microsoft has a "memory tester"..
They explain the procedure here:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Memtest86 - A Stand-alone Memory Diagnostic tool
http://www.memtest86.com/
Click to expand...
Great advice. Thanks. And I'm comfortable doing the memory module swap
(there are two modules installed and I installed the second one.)

Before I do the memory swap I'm going to need to record the memory problem
data the next time is turns up.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help.

I'll post back after I go through the work your suggesting.

Tom
 
Back
Top