General computer problems (bad memory?)

I am having this big problem. This July, my computer started acting slow. The internet would often lag very much. Then one day it culminated. My computer would simply not function at all.
It started by me suddenly losing all internet connection.
Then I rebooted. It came to the "Select User" screen in Windows. I entered my user, and the loading time was incredibly long. Up to 1 minute until the windows login sound came. After that, my desktop would appear. But only thing visible was the mouse cursor and the wallpaper. After another 10-15 minutes, the interface would appear, along with desktop icons. The internet connection was still gone.
I tried system recovery, but it did not work.
Then, a month after, I got a relative to do a rollback for me, to the time of purchase (fabrication settings).

It lasted a week or two, then it happened again. This time, system recovery worked. Since then, it has happened about every week or so, forcing me to do a system recovery.

Things I have discovered about the problem:
vsmon.exe, part of my firewall (Zone Alarm) will be unable to start when the problem is near.
Guild Wars will come with an error, saying it is unable to launch, when the problem is near.
Such programs as Windows Firewall Control Panel is not able to launch, after the problem has occured.
My AV, Avast! and firewall, ZoneAlarm, is not able to start once the problem has occured.


I have uninstalled ZoneAlarm, and gotten Comodo yesterday, and will see if that does any good.

Also, I think it might be memory related, as I suddenly became unsure if my RAM was of the same type (so I will include my dxdiag for you to see).


Much thanks to anyone who helps me fix this, and even some GW gold if it turns out to be a lasting solution (as I don't plan on getting a new PC before my 18 year birthday, next August).

DxDiag

_Zexion

Sounds like a hard drive going bad, if it's progressively getting worse, it's very possible the drive is starting to fail. There are some software tests on the net (some are free) that will do exstensive testing on the drive. One of the biggest problems in diagnosing a failure over long time periods is that it's random and can affect a much larger range of issues. Hard drives are pretty cheap over here in the US, you can pick one up for way under $100, brand new. It might be easiest (since your doing restores anyway) to start with a new drive, plus you will always be able to use it down the road too!

Could you link me to one of these tests please then?

_Zexion

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/, thats the one that comes with your drive, i had 2 of those drives in raid. I had a brand new 500gb drive fail on me just last week, it happens...

When you did a restore, does it automatically partition it like that? it's weird because service pack 2 supports drives over 137 gb, so i'm wondering if your restore is only SP1. Here's a reference... http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;303013

Anyway, after you do these restores, do you go ahead and have to update to sp2? It's not the issue with your problem per say, i was just curious.

I had a RAM DIMM develop an error. Stopped my GW game in its tracks. Because it was probably kind of high up, it didn't affect directly the OS so my computer ran except that GW would try to fix the data archive and often die. It wasn't until I enabled ALL the POST tests and shut down fast boot that I got the clue that my RAM was the problem. A bit of troubleshooting isolated the bad DIMM and I got a replacement set from the vendor.

Heh, it was a holiday for me and instead of spending it playing GW (I do play alot ) I spent 8 hours figuring out what was suddenly wrong with the computer.

So, would anyone please take a "holiday" then, helping me trying to confirm what my problem is?:P

I ran the seagate tests. I got errors from one of them. Here is the log:

Same drive, 3 different partitions.

File volumes are open? What does that mean?

_Zexion

do Start > run > type "cmd" and then use chkdsk /R

If that doesnt work, you may need to boot to your XP CD and use the recovery console and repair it that way...

Ok, thanks, tried /r and /f both, still says there is an error when I run "chkdsk", but seems to have worked. The computer runs a bit smoother in general.
Also, can you tell me if I need my XP registration key in order to do a repair?
Also, can you tell me what the shortcut for my BIOS is, so I can boot from CD? I really can't remember, but maybe you can tell from the dxdiag?

_Zexion

Not an option. 1 word, no floppy drive. Stupid I know, but whatever.

_Zexion

make a bootable Cd instead of a bootable floppy.

The best thing for you to do in this situation based on my expirence is to A buy a new harddrive as Gabriel Heart suggested..

You can run diagnostic test till you are blue in the face.. But if that HDD is BAD then the tests are not going to be accurate..

If you can post all the hardware you are running..

Motherboard type and maker
Memory Name brand
HDD name brand
Video Card Brand...

And get yourself a damn floppy ...LOL>>

Actually, we only install floppies in new systems for one reason: to install the SATA drivers. And once Vista comes out with SATA built-in, we will not even do that anymore.

Although at least we install a floppy with a built-in card reader. At least that means it is not totally obsolete. :P