Workaround?

[guest2859]

Okay, so... my lightning speed gaming PC has what I'm hoping to ONLY be an OS error, because when I start up in normal Windows mode, it'll start loading up the usuals (PC Probe for temperature gauges, AV, Hamachi, security, update checker, etc.) And well, after I installed the 12.3 driver for ATI Catalyst, my computer started losing speed. About a week after all of this, it starts force-closing after everything, or whenever I tell it to launch any program like Firefox or even Explorer, I'll hear my hard drive stop spinning and windows will enter hang-up mode. (I also have this thing where 12.3 makes my CPU light flash every second). Any information on what could fix this?

Also this happened after I installed a few updates and a service pack install failed. I successfully installed it again from Safe-Mode, but it's still not working.

Computer Case: Cooler Master HAF 912
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth x58
Processor: Intel Core i7 - 8 Total Cores at 3.07gHz
RAM: 12gb DDR3 - 6x2gb
Video: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
Hard Drive: 1TB SCSI 6gb/s
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1

[guest2859]

Quite amazing. I uninstalled a few things and it's running good so far.

I lied. It worked once. Then it decided to update again, and now it's just being weird again.

[Human No More]

run memtest? check your hardware temperatures?

Disable the auto reboot on a system error (system properties > advanced > startup and recovery > uncheck automatically reboot) and see if you get a usable code from a BSOD or if it still just hard reboots (the latter often indicating a PSU or temperature problem). Also, if you allow it to save a memory dump there then I can take a look at those and usually find what's at fault.

[guest2859]

Well, I probably should've said it's working again. I've disabled updates, because that's when it goes wrong. I had to do a failed uninstall of SP1 (I still have it though), and it started working fine since then. I have 3 new fans in, and so far it's running pretty normal.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

A couple of thoughts:

The slowdown problem sounds to me like a classic 'memory leak'. Perhaps the driver is 'oprhaning' allocated blocks of memory that the OS can't later recover. The best test for this is to back out the 12.3 driver and try an earlier driver. If your problems go away, it is the driver. If it turns out to be the driver, report it to ATI.

Windows 7 has a tendency to 'break' things easily when updated. I have had this happen more than once on my work desktop (which they pretty forced me to use Windows 7). One think that 'broke' was part of my vocabulary learning screensaver. Thankfully, the important parts of the screensaver still work.

[guest2859]

Well, I uninstalled the service pack because that was the initial update. It fixed it once because it's doing it again.

I did many times research, and kept getting results for Registry Errors. Well, I found a registry scanner/fixer, and fixed some ~340 errors. Well, that didn't help at all.

So. My next plan is to start uninstalling unused programs, and then if necessary, re-install a better version of Windows, if not first.

EDIT: I've also run the memory checker thing in the boot options about 5 times and never got any errors.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

If you have found that many problems in your registry you should 1. Suspect the 'correctness' of your memory scanner and/or 2.) consider doing a fresh OS install. If you really have that many registry problems, you might have some other things corrupt as well. This is also a good way to Tspang tì'i'avay unwanted TSR's, rootkits, etc.

[Swoka Ikran]

My first thought would be to remove the 12.3 driver. If it doesn't help, reinstall the OS. The fact that SP1 didn't install right (then also failed to remove itself) is not a good sign.

Also, I'd advise against using registry scanners. In my experience, they tend to just cause more problems. I don't recall ever fixing a problem by using one...

Windows 7 has a tendency to 'break' things easily when updated.

Including itself. I've seen Win7 trash itself while installing updates several times. Sometimes the resulting problems manifest as strange behavior, random hangs, or similar that won't go away. Other times, it's flat out obvious that it's toast (BSOD at boot, etc.)

[Ningey]

I wouldn't say thet registry scanners are all bad.

By my experience, they can be helpful tools, plus any good scanner should always provide an option for backing up any changes it is going to make first and to also undo any changes it may have made (by reading in the backup) if necessary.

In fact, it has been a registry scanner (in conjunction with Spybot Search and Destroy since I also had to eliminate two rootkits) that helped me get a colleague's box back to normal, and since then it's working just fine - no problems at all.

Ma Nantang 'Rrtayä, I fear that from the symptoms that you are describing you should consider reinstalling from scratch (make sure you back up your registry immediately afterwards) to get things unmessed (or roll back to a definite state before the update mess started, providing you have such a backup point at hand). This way a friend of mine had been able to get unstuck from a failed update attempt.

By the way: Do you have a TeamViewer available?

[Swoka Ikran]

I wouldn't say thet registry scanners are all bad.

By my experience, they can be helpful tools, plus any good scanner should always provide an option for backing up any changes it is going to make first and to also undo any changes it may have made (by reading in the backup) if necessary.

A few of them are decent, but many are garbage. I'm especially thinking of all the "free" ones that claim you have 5000 errors, then ask you to pay to "fix" the harmless/non-existent/essential entries.

In fact, it has been a registry scanner (in conjunction with Spybot Search and Destroy since I also had to eliminate two rootkits) that helped me get a colleague's box back to normal, and since then it's working just fine - no problems at all.

It really depends on the problem and preferred way of fixing I suppose. For some issues, some of the better ones might indeed do the job adequately. I've used RegSeeker's cleaner and CCleaner's registry scanner several times for housekeeping purposes.

Often, registry scanners are dangerous because users don't understand what the tool is actually doing and don't make backups

[guest2859]

Well, the registry scanner left me at neutral results actually: the 2nd time, it booted up just fine, no problems. I uninstalled all post-March 31st updates, and cleared up about 15g of space to get some loading time down. As for TeamViewer, I'll see about getting that on in a while.

[Ningey]

I wouldn't say thet registry scanners are all bad.

By my experience, they can be helpful tools, plus any good scanner should always provide an option for backing up any changes it is going to make first and to also undo any changes it may have made (by reading in the backup) if necessary.

A few of them are decent, but many are garbage. I'm especially thinking of all the "free" ones that claim you have 5000 errors, then ask you to pay to "fix" the harmless/non-existent/essential entries.

In fact, it has been a registry scanner (in conjunction with Spybot Search and Destroy since I also had to eliminate two rootkits) that helped me get a colleague's box back to normal, and since then it's working just fine - no problems at all.

It really depends on the problem and preferred way of fixing I suppose. For some issues, some of the better ones might indeed do the job adequately. I've used RegSeeker's cleaner and CCleaner's registry scanner several times for housekeeping purposes.

Often, registry scanners are dangerous because users don't understand what the tool is actually doing and don't make backups

If I'm correcting a mess, I'm using CCleaner as well (which gives me the best results), because its scans are the most accurate. In fact, I had to deal with very few mistakes only, but normally those can be corrected fairly easily.
As for users who don't know what they are doing: I guess you are referring to the species we would call a DAU (abbr. for German Dümmster anzunehmender User) here...
Anyway, this issue discussed here isn't a problem of a user not knowing what to do, but instead we are dealing with a screwed update. The only problem could be figuring out what exactly is going wrong.

Well, the registry scanner left me at neutral results actually: the 2nd time, it booted up just fine, no problems. I uninstalled all post-March 31st updates, and cleared up about 15g of space to get some loading time down. As for TeamViewer, I'll see about getting that on in a while.

O.k. - you should install v. 6.xx, then (I got the same version here) so we can examine the problem together. A newer version would prevent me from logging in.
One more question, though: Are you running Micro$oft Office? If yes, that could be one possibility that causes the trouble, because said friend had it installed as well, however the update got stuck at the attempt to update the office suite. Once he had rolled back to a clean state and done away with it, everything had been fine.

[Swoka Ikran]

If I'm correcting a mess, I'm using CCleaner as well (which gives me the best results), because its scans are the most accurate. In fact, I had to deal with very few mistakes only, but normally those can be corrected fairly easily.
As for users who don't know what they are doing: I guess you are referring to the species we would call a DAU (abbr. for German Dümmster anzunehmender User) here...

Those are indeed the types of users I'm referring to. ~90% of the people I've fixed PCs for probably fall in that category. I've seen all sorts of creative ways to trash PCs, and misuse of registry scanners is one of the more common ones, hence my general "stay away" recommendation.

If a user really insists on using one, I suggest CCleaner.

[guest2859]

If I'm correcting a mess, I'm using CCleaner as well (which gives me the best results), because its scans are the most accurate. In fact, I had to deal with very few mistakes only, but normally those can be corrected fairly easily.
As for users who don't know what they are doing: I guess you are referring to the species we would call a DAU (abbr. for German Dümmster anzunehmender User) here...

Those are indeed the types of users I'm referring to. ~90% of the people I've fixed PCs for probably fall in that category. I've seen all sorts of creative ways to trash PCs, and misuse of registry scanners is one of the more common ones, hence my general "stay away" recommendation.

If a user really insists on using one, I suggest CCleaner.

I picked the registry scanner after a million attempts to diagnose it myself by researching the problem. I couldn't find a fix myself except by installing the OS again. I downloaded ATI Catalyst 12.1 and need to figure out how to roll it back to that version, which I'll do later sometime.

As for the remote desktop controller, it'll be installed tomorrow most likely.

[Human No More]

Well, I uninstalled the service pack because that was the initial update. It fixed it once because it's doing it again.

I did many times research, and kept getting results for Registry Errors. Well, I found a registry scanner/fixer, and fixed some ~340 errors. Well, that didn't help at all.

Those applications are crapware; at best they do nothing, at worst they break things (and some, such as CCleaner, come with crapware toolbars). The registry doesn't need 'fixing' outside of very specific problems, and when that happens, they don't do anything you can't do with regedit. As was mentioned before, some are also scareware and try and trick people into paying for a useless 'full version' by showing fake 'problems'.

So. My next plan is to start uninstalling unused programs, and then if necessary, re-install a better version of Windows, if not first.

That's also useless, all you'll do is free up some disk space and maybe memory if you remove old startup entries. A clean reinstall of your existing OS may potentially fix a problem, but it's still fixable without doing it. Old or conflicting drivers might be a problem, but not random applications that don't get used and have no system services.
Do you have a memory dump (normally C:\Windows\minidump)? I can look at those and get some insight into the problem.

[Swoka Ikran]

The registry doesn't need 'fixing' outside of very specific problems, and when that happens, they don't do anything you can't do with regedit.

Research, experience, and regedit are always the best fix for registry issues IMO.

When it comes to the registry, I like to think of it as: "If ain't broke, don't fix it. If you think it's broke, look elsewhere before trying to fix it."

Unfortunately, people just don't have any idea where to look, what they're looking at, what to research, nor how to do any of it safely, hence the reason for these crapware registry scanners that claim to be a "miracle fix" for everything.

[guest2859]

I have reason to believe that Avast!'s been the cause of the hangups. I switched to AVG and have had nothing but flawless startups since. (It finishes reading the disk about 5x faster at startup now because AVG doesn't automatically re-download every virus definition at startup)

[Human No More]

Avast and AVG are both major bloatware, although AVG is probably better; but a long time since I've installed them for anyone.

NOD32 FTW

[guest2859]

Avast and AVG are both major bloatware, although AVG is probably better; but a long time since I've installed them for anyone.

NOD32 FTW

Limited to free stuff, unless I find a way of obtaining that. Is NOD32 some high-class AV software?

[Tsmuktengan]

NOD32 is indeed a very good security suite. It relies on excellent and precise heuristics and is the best on this since a very long, although it also relies on signatures.

Never had issues with Avast on my side, always did its job properly.