My problem started with the computer locking up with no keyboard or mouse support.
I had to do a forced shutdown to recover.
Then on one of the few occasions I run windows/ boot to it, I started getting Blue crash screens that progressed more often.
They would happen as desktop addons were installing and after the desktop appeared.
I did a complete intensive memory check and also a processor check and also a few disk checks.
The memory and processor checks were done from windows recovery.
Also, my Windows antivirus failed to find anything.
I bit the bullet and did a compete factory reinstall using the recovery partition on the windows drive.
All of my Puppy files including the OSes were on a second drive.
I lost all the games I had installed on the windows drive as well as some other stuff.
But windows was back then.
I then went to my BIOS and switched the boot order to the drive containing my Puppy OSes.
I booted from a Puppy 5.5.7.1 CD and installed Grub for DOS to my second drive (the one with the puppy files) allowing it to create a new menu.lst file.
I rebooted and am now back posting this from Slacko 5.5 on the second drive.
As to what infected my PC and caused the problems, I never found out.
And time will tell as to if I got the problem resolved.
I have never heard of a piece of malware that would display the problems I was experiencing as most hackers would want the computer to stay up for their purposes.
And I have some work ahead in reinstalling the games that were lost with the factory reinstall.
What I did may seem extreme, but not knowing just what file(s) to remove if it was a case of some file causing the problem I saw it as my only option at the time.
I am sure others have their computer horror story too!
Anyway, Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy! I am back with Puppy and that was what concerned me the most. That I might have lost all my Puppy related files.
Flash is running about the safest setup with no hard drive and booting Puppy from a multi-session DVD!!
Blue Screen Computer crash
I haven't had any of the kind of problems you describe since I ditched my hard disk drives 
. They failed so often that I started looking for a more reliable and less troublesome way to use a computer. But there's another reason why hard disk drive installs are a bad way to go: changes to the OS files are done by modifying the file irreversibly. This is why malware is so hard to find and fix. If I happen to pick up a bug, I can look back through the saved sessions on my multisession DVD to see what was changed and how, or if I'm feeling lazy I can just tell Puppy to not load the suspect session when it boots.
. They failed so often that I started looking for a more reliable and less troublesome way to use a computer. But there's another reason why hard disk drive installs are a bad way to go: changes to the OS files are done by modifying the file irreversibly. This is why malware is so hard to find and fix. If I happen to pick up a bug, I can look back through the saved sessions on my multisession DVD to see what was changed and how, or if I'm feeling lazy I can just tell Puppy to not load the suspect session when it boots.You mentioned that if you got a nasty on one of your sessions...
I would have thought that with the option of not to save, you would bypass any of them!
Also, I am again back from the computer locking up when I clicked on REPLY when I previously read your reply.
So My problems are not completely solved yet!
Since I have lockups occurring in Puppy now, I am wondering what to look for that might be causing it.
But one thing I had in common with my Puppy installs was that my .mozilla directory was on /mnt/home and system-linked in root so that I could use one common Directory for my Seamonkey on each Puppy.
I may have to move it back to the pupsave file and also use one of my backups of my pupsave to see if that helps.
One other thing that had happened was that on a frugal install of Precise 5.71, when I clicked on the Browser icon, I got a screen of horizontal colored lines and a lockup also.
And this was when booting it with pfix=ram too!
So I am genuinely frustrated and suggestions are welcome.
I would have thought that with the option of not to save, you would bypass any of them!
Also, I am again back from the computer locking up when I clicked on REPLY when I previously read your reply.
So My problems are not completely solved yet!
Since I have lockups occurring in Puppy now, I am wondering what to look for that might be causing it.
But one thing I had in common with my Puppy installs was that my .mozilla directory was on /mnt/home and system-linked in root so that I could use one common Directory for my Seamonkey on each Puppy.
I may have to move it back to the pupsave file and also use one of my backups of my pupsave to see if that helps.
One other thing that had happened was that on a frugal install of Precise 5.71, when I clicked on the Browser icon, I got a screen of horizontal colored lines and a lockup also.
And this was when booting it with pfix=ram too!
So I am genuinely frustrated and suggestions are welcome.
You are getting data corruption somewhere within your system. My guess is hardware failure rather than virus or malware. I would do the following in this order:
1) remove and reinstall memory boards
2) replace memory boards if problem persists after reseating them...
3) replace power supply
4) replace hard drive
if problems still persist replace the motherboard or throw the whole system away
(I've only had two systems that I had to throw away in disgust after doing items 1-4. - motherboard capacitors were toast on one of them, and the smd components around the cpu socket caught fire on the other one...)
1) remove and reinstall memory boards
2) replace memory boards if problem persists after reseating them...
3) replace power supply
4) replace hard drive
if problems still persist replace the motherboard or throw the whole system away
(I've only had two systems that I had to throw away in disgust after doing items 1-4. - motherboard capacitors were toast on one of them, and the smd components around the cpu socket caught fire on the other one...)
Re: Blue Screen Computer crash
Is that an "improper poweroff"?8-bit wrote:I had to do a forced shutdown...
That is likely to cause corruption...
Of the partition-filesystem [PFS] in use, and/or the folder/file contents of the PFS in use.
I would always scan&fix the PFS after the "improper-poweroff" and prior to attempting to boot the OS.
Especially if its Windows.
I'd never use the suspect Windows OS to scan&fix itself; I'd use something else, usually Puppy->GParted->"check" on the PFS.
If that failed:
I'd [fix the PFS, then] use Puppy->Xfe to delete the folder/file contents of the Windows partition then restore a backup of the partition contents [made using Xfe].
Or...
Restore an image backup using something like "Acronis True Image".
Sylvander,
The forced shutdown was done with no hard drive activity light showing for a while.
I had ran a number of hard drive tests on both hard drives.
All tests had came up good.
So now it is a matter of seeing if the factory reinstall of windows worked.
The PC is a Compaq Presario and from what I remember, factory built PCs used an underpowered power supply as far as adding hardware.
And on occasion, I have had the factory hard drive, an installed by me hard drive, and an external USB hard drive hooked up as well as having an addon adaptec scsi controller board that I had hooked to an external 250meg zip drive and a 9600DPI scanner.
And naturally, you all have told me what I did not want to hear of possible motherboard problems.
I have SpinRite also. But have not used it because it is an older version made back when hard drives were under 1gig in size.
And for those that may not know, SpinRite is a very good drive checking and recovery utility.
The forced shutdown was done with no hard drive activity light showing for a while.
I had ran a number of hard drive tests on both hard drives.
All tests had came up good.
So now it is a matter of seeing if the factory reinstall of windows worked.
The PC is a Compaq Presario and from what I remember, factory built PCs used an underpowered power supply as far as adding hardware.
And on occasion, I have had the factory hard drive, an installed by me hard drive, and an external USB hard drive hooked up as well as having an addon adaptec scsi controller board that I had hooked to an external 250meg zip drive and a 9600DPI scanner.
And naturally, you all have told me what I did not want to hear of possible motherboard problems.
I have SpinRite also. But have not used it because it is an older version made back when hard drives were under 1gig in size.
And for those that may not know, SpinRite is a very good drive checking and recovery utility.
Earlier, I had stated that when running Precise 5.7.1 that Seamonkey would display a strange screen and lock up.
I have reflected on that and found that my dual-core compaq is a 32 bit PC and I was trying to run the PAE version (64-bit) of Precise 5.7.1.
But even with doing a number of memory tests on it, I have found that the memory is getting corrupted.
I state this because when I booted from a multi-session CD and saved the session, I saw that the volume icon had an X through it and even though I was able to surf the net with pfix=ram, when the saved session was loaded, my settings had disappeared and also the eithernet card was no longer recognized and no eithernet card software was found.
So as to not be pulling out what little hair I have left, I will have to start saving up for either a replacement desktop or a replacement motherboard.
Sorry to dump my problems on the forum, but I am addicted to Puppy Linux and would get severe withdrawal not having a PC to visit this forum!
I have reflected on that and found that my dual-core compaq is a 32 bit PC and I was trying to run the PAE version (64-bit) of Precise 5.7.1.
But even with doing a number of memory tests on it, I have found that the memory is getting corrupted.
I state this because when I booted from a multi-session CD and saved the session, I saw that the volume icon had an X through it and even though I was able to surf the net with pfix=ram, when the saved session was loaded, my settings had disappeared and also the eithernet card was no longer recognized and no eithernet card software was found.
So as to not be pulling out what little hair I have left, I will have to start saving up for either a replacement desktop or a replacement motherboard.
Sorry to dump my problems on the forum, but I am addicted to Puppy Linux and would get severe withdrawal not having a PC to visit this forum!
Just for the record, Precise 5.7.1 PAE is 32 bit also. The kernel has PAE enabled to allow Linux to access all installed ram..... if in excess of about 3.2 GB.8-bit wrote:Earlier, I had stated that when running Precise 5.7.1 that Seamonkey would display a strange screen and lock up.
I have reflected on that and found that my dual-core compaq is a 32 bit PC and I was trying to run the PAE version (64-bit) of Precise 5.7.1.
The k-3.9.11 kernel used also needs the boot parameter nouveau.noaccel=1 with some Nvidia graphics chips or Precise will freeze up.The Nvidia chips on some of my dual and quad-core boxes are affected and the boot parameter stops the freezes.
Or, using an older kernel works too....