Unknown problem crashes computer

[Londoner]

Hi,

I recently developed a problem with my computer and I cannot pin down the cause. It seems to be related to internet usage.
The commencement of the problem seems to have coincided with my Firefox becoming unworkable.
The outcome is screen freezes, crashes, auto-restarts.

Ok, first, around the time the problem began I found I could not start up my Firefox. What would happen when I tried to open Firefox is that my cursor would 'flash' to eggtimer and back to arrow again. I would check my applications/systems processes (ctrl+alt+delete or whatever that is) and I would see Firefox.exe kind of flashing on and off. It was never on long enuff to quit it so I would be stuck with it like that. Finally, the screen would freeze or computer crash.

So I use IE instead. When I go online with my 'virgin' broadband it goes immediately to the virgin homepage and if I don't get out of there quick it freezes my computer. This never happened before, just since the problem began.

I have run all the usual search and destroy and adaware and etc but find just the usual stuff. Nothing serious.

I try scanning with Trend Micro and Panda but I never get long enough online for these scans to finish. Panda did turn red when I ran it last but it never finished so I didn't get to know why. One time with Trend micro running in the java environment it told me there was a major java problem and to restart and run again but after I restarted I couldn't get it to run again because it kept crashing.

Well, that's about it, I assume its all the same problem - I am having some graphics card issues too at the moment but these seem unrelated since the crashes only seem to happen online or with online games.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.
Thanks for reading.

[glc]

Can you get online scans working if you use safe mode with networking?

[macko72]

Originally Posted by glc Can you get online scans working if you use safe mode with networking?

And try uninstalling Firefox until you resolve problem!!!

[Londoner]

Hi,

so things have moved on a little but the problem persists.

I have been able to run both Trend Micro's Housecall, and Panda online scans and although both found some of the usual suspects neither found anything disastrous. I also ran some scans from pcpitstop.com which found no issues. I also payed for and ran Registry Mechanic, that found a number of things which it corrected.

BUT - last night while I was online everything slowed down dramatically. Frame rate right down. So I did an alt+ctrl+delete to look at processes and there seem to be rather alot fo them - and at the bottom it said my cpu cpacity was 95% then 98% then 100% !!! it then went down to 40% then up again and finally my computer crashed.

I don't know if all those processes are part of the problem or what would cause my cpu to be at 100% capacity - or maybe I have misunderstood this. I have a 2600+ AMD Athlon processor which is the fasted this MB will take, I have 1000RAM and my HD has about 20% free space (which may not be ideal but is well within the necessary amount).

Any further ideas - and how do I figure out what all those processes are doing?

[macko72]

Yes try using hijack this and post result here!!!

[Londoner]

Hi,

actually, last night I went through the processes (non system ones) one by one and found that alot of them were related to my bluetooth/mobile phone connection. Sony, Nokia, etc. So I stopped all those processes and left all those called 'system' and any related to essential programs, etc. Also, after reading a thread here, I switched off the auto restart in my computer - advanced.

Later on my computer did the same old thing, really slowed up so it seemed like it had frozen, but every so often there would be movement - I guess this is 'frame rate' or something.

The thing is I have also posted here with a problem upgrading my graphics card driver and I had originally assumed (due to what I thought was solid reasoning) that the two problems weren't related but I am beginning to wonder if a combination between too many processes plus graphics driver issues could be causing all the problems.