System Freeze After Critical Updates: XP Home

[Don Cohen]

I posted this in the Windowsupdate group, but no useful replies yet:

I am having a problem with my daughter's computer:

AMD Duron 750 MHz
Gigabyte TNT2 M64 32 mb VideoCard
128 mb RAM

I did a clean install of XP Home in January of this year. The system has
run essentially flawlessly since then, with rare to non-existent crashes or
freezes.

She recently developed a problem where her MSN Profile wouldn't keep the
changes she applied. Probably a cookies issue. While I was at her
computer, I went ahead and applied all Critical Updates that had accumulated
over the last few months. They downloaded and installed uneventfully, with
normal boot-up afterwards.

From that point on, this system would totally freeze multiple times every
day. This would occur during normal usage, browsing the web, etc. Really
nothing exotic. The system would be totally responsive, with Ctrl+Alt+Del
not producing any effect. Have to power down to reboot. I was at the
system for about a half-hour, not doing anything even remotely demanding,
and encountered first-hand multiple lockups.

I found an updated video driver through Windows Update, and installed this
without any problem, hoping to resolve this problem, but no joy.

Fortunately, I had used DriveImage 2002 earlier this year, capturing the OS
partition from when the XP Install was completed, and all her usual
programs, NAV, Zone Alarm, etc. installed, and everything was running fine.
I restored this image uneventfully, and the system again ran beautifully.

I again let XP install all Critical Updates, and the previous freeze-ups
immediately recurred. I do not know which one(s) are causing this problem.
I re-ran DriveImage, and got her up and running again. But unless I can
identify where the problem is, I won't be able to apply Critical Updates and
keep her system up to date.

It seems clear to me that one or more of the Critical Updates is triggering
this problem. Any ideas or suggestions on which one(s) or whether or not
this problem has been identified, with a fix available, would be greatly
appreciated.

--
Don
Photo Website at:
http://www.dlcphotography.net

[Remove the "lens cap" for email]

 

[Quaoar]

I posted this in the Windowsupdate group, but no useful replies yet:

I am having a problem with my daughter's computer:

AMD Duron 750 MHz
Gigabyte TNT2 M64 32 mb VideoCard
128 mb RAM

I did a clean install of XP Home in January of this year. The system
has run essentially flawlessly since then, with rare to non-existent
crashes or freezes.

She recently developed a problem where her MSN Profile wouldn't keep
the changes she applied. Probably a cookies issue. While I was at
her computer, I went ahead and applied all Critical Updates that had
accumulated over the last few months. They downloaded and installed
uneventfully, with normal boot-up afterwards.

From that point on, this system would totally freeze multiple times
every day. This would occur during normal usage, browsing the web,
etc. Really nothing exotic. The system would be totally responsive,
with Ctrl+Alt+Del not producing any effect. Have to power down to
reboot. I was at the system for about a half-hour, not doing
anything even remotely demanding, and encountered first-hand multiple
lockups.

I found an updated video driver through Windows Update, and installed
this without any problem, hoping to resolve this problem, but no joy.

Fortunately, I had used DriveImage 2002 earlier this year, capturing
the OS partition from when the XP Install was completed, and all her
usual programs, NAV, Zone Alarm, etc. installed, and everything was
running fine. I restored this image uneventfully, and the system
again ran beautifully.

I again let XP install all Critical Updates, and the previous
freeze-ups immediately recurred. I do not know which one(s) are
causing this problem. I re-ran DriveImage, and got her up and running
again. But unless I can identify where the problem is, I won't be
able to apply Critical Updates and keep her system up to date.

It seems clear to me that one or more of the Critical Updates is
triggering this problem. Any ideas or suggestions on which one(s) or
whether or not this problem has been identified, with a fix
available, would be greatly appreciated.

In the original clean install, I would look at the possibility that
there is a hardware driver incompatibility that only shows up with one
of the later updates, perhaps SP1. In the original configuration,
monitor Event Viewer for errors or warnings. Additionally, are all
XP-compatible drivers installed, including any chipset or motherboard
drivers that might need to be installed after installation of XP? Do
you find any Intel devices where there should not be Intel devices?

Q

 

[SylviaC]

Hi Don,
I cam to this newsgroup looking for the same info. My IMB
Thinkpad was doing exactly the same thing your daughter's
pc was doing. Even worse, I had to disconnect the power
cord and physically pop out the battery to get a reboot.
Not fun. I can't locate the cause either - I think it is
not one update but a couple of them combined that are
incompatible with each other. I finally reimaged my
machine and am simply NOT applying either SP1 or any
critical updates anymore. I figure since it continues to
run fine without them, I am better off a bit less up-to-
date than rebooting a few times a day. I hope you find
some answers. I am giving up based on what I've seen so
far. Oh well! Maybe I'll try again when (and if) SP2
comes out.
Sylvia

-----Original Message-----
Q,

In the original clean install, I would look at the possibility that
there is a hardware driver incompatibility that only shows up with one
of the later updates, perhaps SP1. In the original configuration,
monitor Event Viewer for errors or warnings. Additionally, are all
XP-compatible drivers installed, including any chipset or motherboard
drivers that might need to be installed after installation of XP? Do
you find any Intel devices where there should not be

Intel devices?

Thanks for the reply.

As I recall, the XP install was uneventful, and all drivers were provided by
XP. Device Manager shows no conflicts or problems. And no unexpected Intel
devices either. Is there anything specific I can check to verify all
drivers are officially XP compatible?

So as far as I can see, the original XP installation was/is ok; the problem
appeared immediately after the Critical Updates were installed.

--
Don
Photo Website at:
http://www.dlcphotography.net

[Remove the "lens cap" for email]


.

 

[Don Cohen]

Thanks for the feedback, Sylvia. Sorry you're also having problems, but it
is a bit comforting to me to know that it's not just some quirk of my
daughter's system. For now, I'm going to do the same thing as you - just
sit tight and not apply any updates for the time being. This is not a good
long-term solution, but will have to do for now unless somebody can more
precisely pinpoint (or fix!) where this problem is originating.

Regards,

--
Don
Photo Website at:
http://www.dlcphotography.net

[Remove the "lens cap" for email]

Hi Don,
I cam to this newsgroup looking for the same info. My IMB
Thinkpad was doing exactly the same thing your daughter's
pc was doing. Even worse, I had to disconnect the power
cord and physically pop out the battery to get a reboot.
Not fun. I can't locate the cause either - I think it is
not one update but a couple of them combined that are
incompatible with each other. I finally reimaged my
machine and am simply NOT applying either SP1 or any
critical updates anymore. I figure since it continues to
run fine without them, I am better off a bit less up-to-
date than rebooting a few times a day. I hope you find
some answers. I am giving up based on what I've seen so
far. Oh well! Maybe I'll try again when (and if) SP2
comes out.
Sylvia

-----Original Message-----
Q,

In the original clean install, I would look at the possibility that
there is a hardware driver incompatibility that only shows up with one
of the later updates, perhaps SP1. In the original configuration,
monitor Event Viewer for errors or warnings. Additionally, are all
XP-compatible drivers installed, including any chipset or motherboard
drivers that might need to be installed after installation of XP? Do
you find any Intel devices where there should not be

Intel devices?

Thanks for the reply.

As I recall, the XP install was uneventful, and all drivers were provided by
XP. Device Manager shows no conflicts or problems. And no unexpected Intel
devices either. Is there anything specific I can check to verify all
drivers are officially XP compatible?

So as far as I can see, the original XP installation was/is ok; the problem
appeared immediately after the Critical Updates were installed.

--
Don
Photo Website at:
http://www.dlcphotography.net

[Remove the "lens cap" for email]


.

 

[Don Cohen]

Hi Mike,

Not sure I can offer a resolution, but I think I can get you to a better
place with the updates. First, I would recommend checking your system for
spyware software prior to installing updates. A couple of programs that I
have seen used (no Microsoft endorsement) are Ad Aware and SpybotSD. (I
personally use SpybotSD on my home systems) Some software can get testy if
its functionality is removed or closed by a security update. Prior to
installing a Service Pack or hotfix, it is also a good idea to stop or
disable anti-virus software. By its very nature, this software operates as
a filter driver at the kernel layer and may create problems. Lastly, I
would recommend installing the fixes one section at a time. First do the
Critical, then any Recommended and finally any drivers. Please see below
for information that I posted on another thread.

Thanks for the reply and suggestions.

I'll check for spyware, but believe this would be extremely unlikely. I did
a clean install of XP, added a few basic programs (NAV, Zone Alarm, ICQ, MSN
Messenger), and imaged the OS partition at that point, before doing any web
browsing or anything.

When I previously installed the Critical Updates I did not disable NAV, so I
guess I really need to try again. I had assumed that since I encountered no
problems or error messages during the Update process that everything was ok,
but this might not be the case. And since I had her system set up for
Automatic Update Downloads, they were done en masse. I guess I could do
them individually, but I suspect the number might be a bit large, making
this somewhat tedious.

With reference to NAV, do I need to do more than just disable "AutoProtect"
from the NAV system tray? That is, should I disable all NAV components from
loading (using msconfig) during boot, or is the disable sufficient?

Thanks again.

--
Don
Photo Website at:
http://www.dlcphotography.net

[Remove the "lens cap" for email]

 

[Mike Truitt [Microsoft]]

Don,

You should be fine with disabling NAV in the system tray while you are
downloading and installing. Once the system reboots, NAV should come back
online no problem. Depending on when the system first started experiencing
problems, I know when 811493 was first released that it had a significant
problem with virus scanning software. Microsoft has since re-released the
patch and the current iteration on Windows Update should be fine.

It is funny I should be discussing this now. I am at work rebuilding my
boss' laptop after third-party software blew it away. I am in the middle
of a huge (80 meg) Windows Update installation as I type.

Best regards,

Mike Truitt
Microsoft Corporation

 

[Don Cohen]

Mike

You should be fine with disabling NAV in the system tray while you are
downloading and installing. Once the system reboots, NAV should come back
online no problem. Depending on when the system first started experiencing
problems, I know when 811493 was first released that it had a significant
problem with virus scanning software. Microsoft has since re-released the
patch and the current iteration on Windows Update should be fine.

It is funny I should be discussing this now. I am at work rebuilding my
boss' laptop after third-party software blew it away. I am in the middle
of a huge (80 meg) Windows Update installation as I type.

Thanks again. I'll try to free up some time this week to work on this. If
my problems persist, I'll repost.

At least this experience gave me the opportunity of putting DriveImage to
the test, and it worked just fine. I use this same strategy with my main
desktop, and although I obviously hope I never need it, I feel a bit more
secure knowing it worked pretty well. I just do periodic images of my OS
partition, with all my images/data etc on the other partition (which in turn
is backed up to an external firewire hard-drive).

Good luck with your boss's laptop.


--
Don
Photo Website at:
http://www.dlcphotography.net

[Remove the "lens cap" for email]