Peculiar windows problem

[Carol Haynes]

No idea what is going on - has anyone come across this before?

I was having some unpredictable problems with Windows 7 - like random restarts, sudden slow downs and freezes.

I did a full CHKDSK on my drives - as far as I can tell they completed without errors

Then I did an SFC /SCANNOW which reported unrepairable errors but when I look at CBS.LOG it shows up no errors at all.

Some weird things are happening - for example if I go to Facebook I cannot click on Friends, Photos etc. on any profile (including my own). I can post from my time line but not my own profile page.

I tried this is 3 browsers with the same effect

I am stumped and don;t know where to go from here - I really don't want to do a clean install of windows.

Anyone got any ideas?

[mouser]

Here is what *I* would do:

1. Is it time for a new computer? Has it been over 5-7 years since I got a new one and is this one not quite up to snuf?? If so buy a new pc.
2. Either way, I would take old hard drive out and put it on the shelf for backup, buy a new hard drive and replace it, and do a clean install of windows.
3. If odd problems remain, then for sure I would get a new pc and put the current one to pasture.

I know it's not what you want to do, I just feel like the risks and stress of using flakey software and hardware are not worth it to my piece of mind.. I'd rather bite the bullet and eliminate all potential sources of the problem rather than be constantly hunting down mystery bugs..

[Shades]

Clone the current hard disk onto another one. Remove the current drive and put the cloned drive into the PC. If all went well, your system should boot up without any issues. Windows usually doesn't complain if the only hardware change in the whole computer is the hard disk.

The problematic drive can now be coupled to another PC that uses the tool MHDD for a really thorough check. This check can take hours, depending on the storage capacity of the disk, but you will have a much better understanding of what is wrong on your disk and where (on the surface(s)) these occur.

If these errors occur close to the beginning of the disk or at the end, you can use the MHDD tool to re-adjust the size of the disk, so it will be impossible for any operating system to access such a bad section ever again. The reduced disk can likely be re-used this way. Still, if you reduce the capacity of the disk, you will lose all the content of that disk, yes or yes.

CHKDSK is a tool that makes Windows work with a bad disk. CHKDSK manages/repairs content that has been malformed or misplaced, mainly by misused computers. That part of the concept "disk repair" CHKDSK does well. However, when the hard disk itself has actual issues, CHKDSK doesn't do so well. In those cases you'd better use proper tools like MHDD to investigate and optionally manage the problems on the disk. MHDD has a steep learning curve and can be dangerous in untrained hands. 

[4wd]

Check/clone the drive as Shades suggests then do an In-place Upgrade, Windows will be reinstalled keeping all current settings, programs, etc.  The only things likely to get munged are AV/AM and anything that uses a virtual driver, (eg. DaemonTools), just uninstall those programs first and reinstall after.

Do a backup before doing it to be on the safe side but I've yet to have an In-place Upgrade screw up, (unlike System Restore).

Probably have to have all the Windows updates reinstalled after or use WSUSOffline to create a Windows 7 update disk.

BTW, you didn't mention whether you had booted into Safe Mode and tried Facebook, would at least remove some things from the equation, eg. if it now works it's unlikely to be the HDD.

EDIT: If you can, swap in a known good PSU - probably the first thing to try.

[mouser]

Some weird things are happening - for example if I go to Facebook I cannot click on Friends, Photos etc. on any profile (including my own). I can post from my time line but not my own profile page.

I don't know anything about facebook but this can't be a hardware problem -- it's happening from multiple browsers so it has to be something weirder like firewall, etc.  I'd try to run down this issue and make sure it's not totally unrelated to your other problems and possibly just one of those things that makes sense after you figure out what's happening.

[techidave]

bad memory can cause all sorts of weird problems like you have posted.  I would run a memtest on the computer.  I usually run it for a mninum of 24 hours.  Some people say  you only need it run for 1 pass, but I have discovered it often takes more than just a couple of passes.

I'm with 4wd.  Try a new PSU.

At this point I wouldn't rule out anything.

[Carol Haynes]

Thanks guys - sorry not to get back to you sooner. Since I last wrote I have spent nearly a week semi-delirious with the flu.

I am not sure it is a hardware problem. Games play fine at full throttle (at least the ones I play on Steam - I haven't bought anything much new for ages).

I have Windows 10 and 7 dual booting - it is 7 that is causing issues.

I have checked everything out in windows 10 and apart from an unidentified USB device everything seems to be working fine and smoothly. The unidentified device is, I am pretty sure, the internal card reader (I have tried disconnecting USB devices and the malfunctioning devices doesn't disappear but I haven't taken the side off the box to unplug the card reader - I have also tried every external USB port and they are all working - and since all the internal headers are brought to the outside apart from the one used by the card reader I think I can assume the motherboard USB infratsructure is fine).

I suppose the time is approaching where it will be easier to shift to 10 but I have still have some programmes that don't run well on 10 and my graphics card is on a legacy driver (I can't really afford to buy or justify a new one).


The issue in 7 seemed to largely fix itself with a rollup update so maybe some configuration got broken but today I clicked on chrome to open and the it instantly black screen rebooted.

Maybe I need to shift as much as I can to 10 and then do a clean install of 7 just for legacy bits (a Virtual box doesn't quite cut it).

[app103]

Tip of the Day: Never use Facebook as an indicator of the health of your PC or browser.

Facebook has been known to experiment with stuff, and for it to go horribly wrong, disabling functionality of various parts of their site.

They roll out changes, both good and bad, to a limited audience, so the changes may affect some accounts and not others, or some accounts under certain conditions, browsers, OS's, or combinations of things.

If you want to know if something is wrong with your PC or your browser, use other sites (more than one, in more than one browser) that actually care enough about user experience to not test crap on their live production servers, because if you let yourself become a victim of Facebook's code experiments, you will be driven completely mad, for no good reason.

[mouser]

App has a good point.

[anandcoral]

Agree totally.

Regards,

Anand

[Carol Haynes]

Thanks