My Strangest Problem Yet

[Torsoboy]

Ok, I have had a few problems in the past (aka 1 year ago) when I put together my system. Here's a brief summary of the parts:

• Athlon XP 2500+
• Asus A7N8X De. MB
• 2 WD 80 GB HD
• 2 (512) corsair twinx drr ram (total of 1 gb)
• Audigy 2
• Radeon 9700 Pro
• Antec SOHO Case
• CD/DVD Rom
• CD Burner

Ok heres the problem:
Last night (Monday) was the last time I used the computer, and it ran perfectly as it has for the past year (besides some speed bumps , thanks to all who helped here) and I have noticed no slowdowns or crashes whatsoever. I think it has crashed twice, and both were my fault. Ok, I shut the computer down last night and haven't had a chance to use it since 2:40pm today. I started it up and noticed it was taking extremely long, as in 2 mins on the Asus Logo screen. After windows started loading it took about 5 mins for the icons to pop up on the login screen. I was nervous the processor was melting, or my memory was unplugged, so I shut it down immediately and restarted.

I checked bios and my temp's were great (30 for MB, 39 for processor) all the multipliers were normal and I figured it was just a system hiccup and decided to go back to windows. It wasn't a hiccup, it was taking the same time to load up. After it finally got the icons loaded (7 mins or so) I clicked on one and waited for 1 min before it noticed I clicked. It took another 5 mins to get into windows. It took 3 more mins for things to start loading on my task bar. Norton Antivirus didn't even get a chance to enable itself. I hit ctrl+alt+delete to check for spyware or something under processes and noticed one process called svchost, taking up 17 mbs of memory. I closed this (later finding out it is a process used for windows hosting, probably put after my dad installed a Prismiq media player on the network) and waited longer. Thinks were running slightly faster after the whole system was loaded, though it was still choppy. I told it to restart and a bit later, a message popped up warning me to save all my information in 60 seconds because windows was shutting down. I remember something about system/nthost or something causing it to shutdown, this may be irrelavent, but since I do not know the source of the problem I am putting everything.

After it shut down, I started it back up and made SURE my critical hardware was doing ok and that the temp's weren't burning. I haven't heard any unusual sounds or smells, so that is probably for the better. But when I started it back up after exitting BIOS, it just stayed at the ASUS logo screen. Remember, when I hit delete, it takes a long time for it to load up BIOS, which is VERY weird and makes me think it is a motherboard, processor or memory problem. I have asked the only person who was home during the day if they played on the computer, and they said they haven't been in there today (though if they did something to it I imagine they would lie anyways, no matter what I said). So with idea where or how this problem came from, I am clueless.

Two factors that might have cause this are (though I kinda doubt it):
1) My dad installed a Prismiq media player which browses files on the computers on the network and plays MP3's and such on a stereo system. This was on Saturday this weekend, and it was running fine up until today.
2) The person who was home could have went on the computer or bumped it or something.
3) Something is loose on the computer like the memory, hard drive, or processor. It could be the Motherboard all together.

Ok, I know this is extremely lengthy and their isn't really a lot of things I have said that give away the problem, so I am really looking for suggestions of what you guys would do if you had this problem as well. Please help! Thank you for trying to help!!!

[Torsoboy]

Ok, that was very weird, after taking 30 mins to type up that post I came back upstairs and turned on the computer and now it is running just fine. Talk about the weirdest thing... Any ideas on what caused it?

P.S. I am running Spybot S&D right now and Norton after that, just to be cautious.

[cdnref]

My guess is it was running a virus check at start-up. I had the same problem. It could be that, thats all I can think of.


Best of luck, Andy

[trebor]

Hey torso boy, hate to say this, but you got the ms blaster worm, or something similar. I say this because i just spent uncouted hours getting it off a friends pc. Go to microsoft site and follow instructions to get it off. Not hard to do, just take awhile. luck

[Torsoboy]

I got started it up earlier and it worked just fine. I scanned for viruses and such, checked for all virus' and worms, and I am clean. Must have been a computer fart. The computer may have stayed on all night or something and crashed.

Its all good now, thanks for the replies!