Hiya folks. Lately my computer's been acting up on me. It will restart when I do just about anything, clicking on a link, opening up a program, watching a movie. I have no idea what's going on, and it seems to be related to seemingly randon things. I'm pretty good with computers but I have no idea what's causing this. I can't even visit websites. I'll just click on something and BAM! Rebooting. Can someone help me out? It's an EMachines with an Athlon XP 2400 processor, 384mb ram, 60 gigs hd, and Windows XP.
Thanks,
Greg

 

Here's a couple of ideas:
First, download and install SpyBot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware to check for viruses or trojans. They sometimes make crazy things happen.
Second, have you had any electrical storms or anything that might have damaged your house's wiring?
Third, how long have you had the eMachine? They used to be famous for using cheap power supplies that would fail on a whim.
Fourth, pray its just a virus or trojan. eMachines used to have atrocious customer no-service. They may have improved but if its a problem with the machine, you'll have to talk to them. And if its your house's wiring, its gonna be $$$$.

Hope that helps.

 

eMachines is now a division of Gateway. And the service didn't get better.

It sounds like you have one of the Blaster/Sasser virus variants. Go to housecall.trendmicro.com and run the free online virus scan (don't forget to check 'Auto Clean') to see what you have.

 

I recently upgraded my home cpu from Win 98 to XP & am getting some experience with it

Has the cpu been doing this for awhile or just recently?? With XP you can go back to a restore point & reload those settings without losing any data.. If it started acting up last week, you can go back to the week before, for example..

You could also have a virus, as mentioned. Run a current AV program such as Norton..

I had a very wierd problem last week where the cpu would do very strange things.. Sometimes windows would restart or an icon would open on it's own or programs would not work.. I tried the restore points, but it just got worse. Turned out to be a bad stick of memory.. On power up, the memory would pass, but running a memory (mem86?) test DL'd from the internet, this stick would always fail.. Replaced the stick, reloaded XP & I was on my way..

Good Luck,

Russ

 

Sounds like the Sasser worm. My brother had it on his machine and had the same results. Anytime he clicked on anything on his desktop, the machine would reboot. Norton has the fix for it, and Microsoft has released a security patch to prevent it in the future.

 

I have the same thing happen with a machine I built myself that is very similar.

Windows XP, AMD Athlon 2400, 256m RAM and 160 gig of Hard drive.

See a blue screen flash for a half second and reboots, usually when I click on something but sometime just does it when nothing is running.

I've replaced many a driver with no luck, been going thru the processes that are running and found a few spywares that I've elimanated.

I've heard that you can disable the reboot on error option in windows and keep going, but this is not a cure for the core problem.

Will let you guys know if I figure this out.

 

its Sasser, go to microsoft.com and look for the Sasser worm fix.....mine did the same thing...try it itll help

 

not the sasser worm, whenever it(or one of it varients) comes up it will say there has been an error(usually in lsass*****) and the comuter will reboot in 60 seconds, to stop that while the countdown is running go to start-run and type in shutdown -a <enter> and then click ok or press enter, this halts the current shutdown sequence, in order to fix download stinger from http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ and then run the microsoft patch for your os (a good utility to keep current on updates is bigfix www.bigfix.com)

anyway it sounds like your rebooting is more of a driver and or corrupted file that is causing the problem

good luck

 

did he call you and tell you that it didnt give him an error window with the countdown?? because from his post he didnt mention wether it did or didnt have a countdown screen....

 

Make sure you've got the latest service pack for WindowsXP, while you're at it.

 

He said it happens randomly, when he does something... sasser variants are pretty much immediately on boot. When lsass***** can't start, or fails, a shutdown warning is given. You can do it randomly. Hit ctrl+alt+del, go to processes, and kill lsass*****. if that doesn't do anything start killing svchost*****s. One of them will usually give you the same error (You have 60 seconds to save your **** before it's toast.)

Have you defragged lately? Installed or downloaded a lot of stuff? Sounds like windows is just having a hard time working with itself... which is usually a combination of a need of a defrag and a good scan via spybot... unless it's REALLY bad, then you need to format...
If the power supply is going bad, it will (usually) be fine for a while, then, as the PS gets hotter, it will shut down. But that (usually) won't give any warning, it will just shut down.

If it is almost immediately on boot, and it gives you a 60 second warning, then it is a sasser/MSBlast variant, and you need to get the patch (when the warning comes up kill the msblast***** or sasser***** (is it sasser***** or something else?) or go into safe mode and go into msconfig (download it if you don't have it) and make sure the program doesn't start... then go get the patch)

If it is random, like you're saying, then you just need to scan for viruses/spyware/adware and defrag... maybe format if it's really bad. How long has it been since you did any of that? A defrag/scan should be as regular as changing your oil, maybe even more often if you download a lot of stuff or install/uninstall a lot of programs...

 

that is classic.....microsoft is allways leavin their backdoors open to trojans...i cleaned one yesterday.

 

I've been slimed!

It is the sasser worm doing this- after I thought about it the problem is pretty close to boot up.

Looked in task manager processes and Isass***** is in there-

Must get rid of it now.

Thanks for the advice, it's been bothering me for days.

 

thats how I know it's not sasser, you are supposed to have lsass***** running, it is a critical system process for windows xp that provides user authentication, without that file WINDOWS WILL NOT FUNCTION! use one of the cleaning utilities if you think that you have a sasser or one of it's varient, but do not delete that file!

 

Thanks, guys. I'll be trying that later. Sorry for not replying yesterday, got caught up in working on a friend's comp, then we ended up at his house playing video games. (He was in definite need of a smoking, administered by me.) But I'll try everything later today. Right now I gotta go mow the yard while it's still cool. Dad left to Austin and left me a note to mow the yard, he'll be back tonight. Thanks, dad.

Thanks again,
Greg