Alright guys, here's the deal. I've had a Dell Dimension 2350 for roughly six years. Terribly outdated but I'm not a gamer so it was never crucial.

About two weeks ago, I was greeted with a blue screen. I wasn't sure if it was THE blue screen of death, or maybe if it was a simple system error. Turns out, I could never get the PC to recover. I would try to start in safe mode w/ command prompt, and nothing. It would simply return to the blue screen and near the bottom it said something to the effect of "Dumping memory" and there was an ascending count at the end of that sentence. Tried warmbooting and restarting countless times with the same net result.

So... I thought what-the-heck. I've had it for six years, and it's as good as dead.

Went out two nights ago and purchased a brand new HP Touchsmart IQ524. GORGEOUS computer, a sleek all-in-one that really cleaned up the office. The monitor is massive, the clarity is unreal. And the speed is awesome & the touchscreen is cooler than the other side of the pillow.

All is well, right? Wrong. Last night, while browsing Autotrader, the BRAND NEW HP GIVES ME THE BLUE-SCREEN.

This thing is a day old. A DAY. Completely fresh system, no connection, file sharing, or affiliation of any sort with my old Dell.

The exact same blue screen popped up as the one I encountered on my Dell. Said the same thing about memory dump, etc.

Warm-booted the HP.

Upon restart, the black screen came up with option to start in Safe Mode. I did so. Everything came up normal.

Checked my HP security center and no memory was lost, no malicious hardware was found. There was a Microsoft Windows update available for "64-bit Malicious Software removal tool" from microsoft.com so the PC updated that. No problems since.... but now I'm scared to death. Nothing like seeing a blue screen on a brand new $1,300 computer (after ONE DAY) to get your heart racing.

What the heck is the deal? I'm honestly stumped. Does my freaking cable modem have a virus?!?! LOL...

Any advice is appreciated.

 

I'm going to assume that you have a good anti-virus program other than what came with the computer.

get a back-up drive in case your computer ever just dies for good.

also make a boot-up disk, although your computer should have came with one, do not lose it, using it will normally erase all your memory but 99 percent of the time will correct any problems not hardware related.

 

Computer came with Norton, and all of the OEM Windows Firewalls, etc.

What is a highly recommended antivirus program? Cheap is good, free is better, but reliability and effectiveness (is that even a word?) are the bigger priority.

I've heard good things about AVG Online and such. Used Ad-Aware 2009 on my old Dell and you see where that got me.

 

well I use Norton takes a little getting used to, 40 bucks isn't that bad per year. I used to use Mcfee but really disliked it as it kept telling me over and over that it was not up to date even 2 seconds after I ran the lastest updates. but I think 40 is the general price for anti-virus software.

Norton AntiVirus 2009 - Windows

but that's all I've dealt with, main thing is that you need something, and set your computer to auto update everything each day

 

So I guess the pending question is... is my old PC recoverable? Just so I can dump everything and sell it for cheap to some broke college kid. Like, $100 cheap.

And how the heck did my new PC already get nailed with the same thing? I've barely even used it.

 

The blue screen is very common due to drivers. Any of the same accessories hooked up to the new computer? did you install drivers from disks? if so, get the latest versions from the mfg web sites - printer, scanner, mouse, ...anything.

1. Try Pcpitstop.com - run "full test" - does a great job at testing everything, even outdated drivers,
2. Dump Norton - AVG is very good and a free version is available.
3. Add Malwarebytes and scan - it finds many things that adaware misses.
4. (I would remove all the HP software they put on, but that is me)

AVG & Malwarebytes are avaible at download.com

This would be a good start...

***oh one more TuneUp Utilities 2009 - GREAT program and you can get it for free to use for 30 days. (also at download.com)

 

do you have the original recovery disk for it, if not you may find it to download on the net or check with the computer manufacture for a replacement.

it's hard to sell an old computer due to the fact that for 3 times your price someone can get a computer several times faster assuming they have a monitor already.

 

The ONLY thing I've used on the new PC that was hooked up on the old one is my Speaker/Subwoofer set. No software on those puppies.

My new HP is an all-in-one... came with its own keyboard/mouse as well. So this is as much of a fresh start as I can imagine.

Is download.com a very reputable site? I did a lot of stupid stuff on my old Dell. Six years of being negligent and browsing in all the wrong places. I was playing Russian Roulette with that joker.

This new one, though... it's my baby. I want to do everything right to protect it and keep it running in tip-top shape. I'm even scared to go on some music hosting sites now... imeem, etc.

Here's a pic of my new unit:

 

Download.com is VERY reputable.
They are actually CNET and they check all of the software they offer and make sure it is spyware and virus free.
Also a great place for reviews.

 

The malware bytes is a GREAT program, highly recommend, but instead of free AVG use Webroot's anti-virus with anti-spyware protection, about $40 a year and WELL worth it. You get what you pay for.

 

Not always. Norton and Mcafee are program hogs - the Free AVG is just a good.
Plus what about the car you are driving - I would call it a bargin.

 

Well it would seem that you may not get what you pay for when you buy Windows. Pay for the computer - Pay extra to try to keep it safe - Pay with your time to overcome the problems - Pay to repair it - Seems not to matter if brand new or old-
Seems to me that the savings that pushed you to Windows may not truly saved you very much if anything. - Simple question Why Windows

 

Evening, John!

Spotted your thread while at work today but the place was a zoo & I never had a chance to answer.

First, blue screens can be darn near anything but are usually caused by funky drivers so 70 is right on the money with his comment. Hence the reason why it asked you if you wanted to boot into 'safe mode' since that allows the PC to boot without loading drivers (that's why if you do your screen looks like heck).

Cable modems cannot have viruses so don't worry about that. Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is an update-like application that looks for & removes whatever malware Microsoft has chosen to whack this particular month (Microsoft releases their updates/patches every second Tuesday of every month so you're likely to receive update notices on the Wed. after). Once again, nothing to worry about; the Tool does a pretty good job of destroying bot-like malware.

I would suspect that your visit with the Blue Screen was something transient & wouldn't lose any more sleep over it. Though 64 bit consumer based computers have been out for awhile MANY application providers STILL haven't gotten on the ball yet & created decent 64 bit drivers. It's something we deal with in the IT world everyday & it's a huge annoyance. HP is known for its crappy 64 bit printer drivers, be forewarned.

As far as anti-virus software goes I'm personally a big fan of Norton/Symantec, ESET or even Microsoft Forefront, which is our primary A/V application at work. I don't know, offhand, whether or not Forefront is available for the consumer market. AVG has put out at least 2 (that I know of) updates that have created massive issues in the past along with McAfee. One is pretty much like the other, honestly. In the 64 bit world, with the ability to use massive amounts of memory, hogging resources becomes moot, especially if you're running with dual, or more, processors.

Malware? - Spybot Search & Destroy is free & pretty downright decent, updated frequently & fairly thorough. I've dumped the free version of Ad-Aware simply because it's gotten too commercialized; lotsa "upgrade" notifications, crappy updates, poor performance, etc. Just Google Spybot, download & install the latest version (1.6.2, I think -edit - or is it 6.2.1? whatever.....), grab the latest updates & you'll be OK.

As far as your old one, who knows. The question is: just how much time do you want to spend fixing it? If you can, try restoring it from the restore disk, if it's available & see what happens. If it works cool, if not dump the old one.

As to the never-ending Windows vs. anything else argument I'll still vote for a Windows machine everytime. Not that's there anything wrong with the various Linux machines (there isn't!) it's just that with Windows you'll always have any application you'll ever want available to you. Just keep your machine up to date with the latest updates, keep off of questionable web sites, don't open emails (or click on links in them!) from people you don't know & you'll be OK !

 

The reason your Dell and HP are having the blue screen problems is because PC's BLOW!!! Seriously...they're like the Daewoo's of computers.

LOL seriously though....Try and run a "System Restore" or "System Recovery" if that's all you can do. Either one of those should fix your problem.

I'm a Graphic Designer and I ABSOLUTELY HATE PC's now. I switched to Mac and I love it!!!! I will NEVER buy a PC again! I've had problem after problem with all of my PC's. I've never had a problem with my Mac and it runs just as fast as it did the day I bought it!

And it's not really the PC so much but it's their stupid friggin OS. Vista is the worst OS ever. I had XP on my laptop which had half of the RAM as my desktop but it was running XP and it ran twice as fast as my desktop computer which was running Vista.

Anyway, my suggestion is to run a System Restore. After that...buy a Mac

 

Kurts - I used to be a big fan of SpyBot - but I have to say it started to miss a lot - Malwarebytes is a great alternative and seems to scan faster. Give it a try.
Also - Really - Try TuneUp Utilities 2009 it is a really GREAT program - kind of an all-in-one. Run the One-Click Tune Up - then brouse the rest of the program. Really.

 

Excellent information guys... keep it coming!

Kurts, thank you for the very detailed info. Many notes have been made and this will come in handy in the future, I'm sure.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed!!

 

I use avg free and have so it updates auto. and never have any problem. Go for it when your norton runs out but you will have to go in to Reg. Edit to get all of norton out of the Reg.

 

The way you describe things, it does not sound like a virus. First thing I would ask is the age of your house. If it is 40 years or more older then it could be electrical. Even if it is newer, you may have a troublesome socket. It could even be your neighborhood.

Do you get the blue screen at the same time it happens? I am an Application Engineer at Intel and formerly had my own computer company. I have been in the industry for more than 25 years. I used to see problems like yours often. When we provided a line conditioner to the outlet, the problems went away over 90% of the time. A line conditioner is not a power strip or surge protector, rather a device that puts out a clean 110 stream. I have seen sockets get down to 70 volts and all the way up to 140. These are not good things for electronic devices.

 

Wow Karl, now I know who to call next time I have compatibility issues with the MFSYS25, LOL j/k. Do you know Jared Leavitt? A few months ago we worked on a campaign with Jared and his counterpart at microsoft about the modular server (which is such a great product).

 

Actually I have worked with Jared several times. Our Modular Server really kicks a$$. Nothing else on the market like it.