Topic: Help, another computer problem.

[likkerpig]

Well, I've beat my head against the wall for 4 hours, time to ask for help.
Just finished my year+ long project building my own system.
The stats:
AMD 2800XP Barton
512Mb ram
120Gig SATA HD
ASUS A7V600 mobo
on board 3com 1 gig ethernet
ATI 9600 128 Mb vid card
Creative 5.1 ES sound card
BenQ 16X dvd r/rw
Windows XP Pro
420W power supply

Not top of the line, but bought bits and pieces as money allowed.

My problem: very intermittant connection to the internet. I am writing this on my laptop using the same cat5e cable, so I rule that out. I'm using a switch, not a router, no port concerns.

After some initial fun (always connect your hard drive to the power supply kids, connecting it to your floppy power cable is a bad thing..) I discovered another important lesson. Install AV software ASAP. Got windows installed, went surfing for updates and drivers, updates started failing. Loaded norton, had 160 viruses on my comp. Cleaned that up, continued with windows update. Finally got to SP2. Downloaded, installed, in that time the firewall detected 2 folks wanting remote access to my comp. Denied access of course.
Now we come to the meat of my problem. I have been able to access the internet 2 times, for a very short time since I installed SP2. I checked my XP firewall, made sure internet explorer was allowed.
As well, on boot up.... when xp starts up and at random times throughout my session I get messages: DLL C:\DOCUME~1\ME\LOCALS~1\Temp\ then various tmp files. It tells me "Not valid windows image". I have gone to the folder and deleted the files, but on every boot up more return. I don't know if this has anything to do with my internet problem, but it sure is annoying.

Any ideas are appreciated.
 

[E_Look]

Likkerpig, try uninstalling SP2.

Some folks, though with Athlon 64 systems, have had major issues with SP2, such as crashing and slowdowns.

While I had heard that the Barton series chips work well with that update, you never know.

Anyhow, it may not be a millionaire's system, but my friend, you built yourself a pretty nice rig there.  You've got a fast chip, a powerful video card, lightning fast HD, lots of RAM, and ample power (boy, I wonder what your case looks like!).  When you've got it going smoothly again, enjoy it.

(I built a similar system for my son, who plays more serious games than I do.  I mess with SFC; he plays AOM, etc.  I gave him a 2500+ Barton, Radeon 9500 (not flashable, alas), 80 Gb ATA-133, 1 Gb RAM, and also 420 W.  AOM runs very well on it.)

[Iceman]

That 1gb of ram is the big helper there!

[Don Karnage]

*drowling* 1 gig of ram , i will see for that when i update my com and i will buy 1 of 2 200 gig hd, i know there are of 250 gig hd but i wont buy them.

[likkerpig]

Getting rid of sp2 did the trick!
Bummer though, I really liked that idiot proof firewall.
Thanks for the help, off to hunt down other bugs now (still getting those invalid .tmp files...)

Oh, reference my case...
I admit it, found one of those uber cool  ones with the clear side panel and a bunch of bells and whistles. It was on sale though. On the plus side it has room for 6 case fans plus some front panel usb and audio ports.

[Capt. Mike]

Sounds like the case I used for my son's computer..four in the front and two in the back, plus one in the side...also got the 80 pin cables with lights..he gets it tomorrow for his birthday..
2.8 GHz Pentium 4
2 80 Gig HD
ATI 128 (don't remember the 9XXX number, but bought it about 3 months ago)
2 gig of memory
1 DVD r/w
1 CD r/w

This is all because I will have a new grandchild come Thanksgiving, and of course will need a computer (tho' by then way obsolete) to bang on 

As to SP2, neither my wife or I have had problems, but I tend to stick with Pentiums, and put as much memory as possible in it.

Mike

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

As well, on boot up.... when xp starts up and at random times throughout my session I get messages: DLL C:\DOCUME~1\ME\LOCALS~1\Temp\ then various tmp files. It tells me "Not valid windows image". I have gone to the folder and deleted the files, but on every boot up more return. I don't know if this has anything to do with my internet problem, but it sure is annoying.

This is almost certainly virus-related.  There's no reason for Windows to ever be looking for .DLLs in any \temp folder.

[E_Look]

likkerpig, look at Barabbas' post.  Maybe you can have your "idiot-proof firewall" back after all!  Do a virus check, hunt 'em down and dispense with them.  Then try installing SP2 again.  It just might work.

[Just plain old Punisher]

Did you save each driver update on your hard drive or did you just "Open from current location" If so some DLL driver files might have been placed in some temp directories, and windows might not have correctly referenced the location of those files. Did you check the Device Manager to see if any hardware devices around working?

[Redshift the Kook]

I haven't even dared install SP2 yet after all the horror stories I've heard. Are there any plus points for doing so?

[Just plain old Punisher]

Some improved IP security protocals, improved firewall, lots of bug fixes and security fixes. The firewall will actually ask you if you want to open closed ports, when you run a program normally blocked by it (Multiplayer games for example)

I've installed it on 5 computers so far without a problem.

[likkerpig]

An update, after 2 days of virus scans, driver updates, rooting through the registry deleting dso exploits, installing/uninstalling sp2 and many other files/programs...
Format c:, reinstall from scratch... virus scanner first after windows... working great.
Ya, smashing an ant with a sledgehammer, but better than putting my fist through the monitor....
Thanks for the help all!

  <- happy pig

[Sirgod]

See You had a Happy BirthDay after all you Nut. 

Stephen

[likkerpig]

See You had a Happy BirthDay after all you Nut. 

Stephen

Heh, actually the most pleasant one in a few years... my liver hurts, ... well various body parts hurt (gotta love ex's who just want to be f*** buddies...)
Well fed, well boozed, well ****ed, and an interesting technical challange (ya I took the easy way out, but I tried for 2 days..) what more could a chain smoking, alcoholic sociopath ask for?
Life is good!

[Sirgod]

See You had a Happy BirthDay after all you Nut. 

Stephen

Heh, actually the most pleasant one in a few years... my liver hurts, ... well various body parts hurt (gotta love ex's who just want to be f*** buddies...)
Well fed, well boozed, well ****ed, and an interesting technical challange (ya I took the easy way out, but I tried for 2 days..) what more could a chain smoking, alcoholic sociopath ask for?
Life is good!

Well If you had that much fun, How many eyes do you see in your Avatar now?    4 , 6 , 2048 ?

Stephen

[likkerpig]

Well If you had that much fun, How many eyes do you see in your Avatar now?    4 , 6 , 2048 ?

Stephen

Well, I just killed a 5L mini keg of Warstiener lager....
What eyes?
Oooo... my computer has pretty colors....

[The Bar-Abbas Anomaly]

Well If you had that much fun, How many eyes do you see in your Avatar now?    4 , 6 , 2048 ?

Stephen

I've lived with a bit of perpetual double-vision since '91..... Everyone I see looks like Likkerpig's Avatar to me from about 10 feet & beyond!

[likkerpig]

oh, an update from a previous thread.
Iceman I got my barton 2800 up to 2.083 GHz finally...
In the bios I had to increase my multiplier to 12.5 (from 10.5) and my external clock to 166MHz (from 133MHz).
Guess the motherboard came preset for a different processor... all a learning experience!

[Just plain old Punisher]

See You had a Happy BirthDay after all you Nut. 

Stephen

Heh, actually the most pleasant one in a few years... my liver hurts, ... well various body parts hurt (gotta love ex's who just want to be f*** buddies...)
Well fed, well boozed, well ****ed, and an interesting technical challange (ya I took the easy way out, but I tried for 2 days..) what more could a chain smoking, alcoholic sociopath ask for?
Life is good!

Weapons grade plutonium?