Pavilion 725n in a big mess

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This all started when I installed AVG anti-virus. Things were going swell
for a day and a half until I checked for an updates on the AVG which it did
and all of a sudden programs started crashing. I decided the AVG was the
problem and uninstalled it. I hate shi**y software that leaves half its
files on your machine when you uninstall it. The biggest problem was the
"virus vault" it left in my Outlook 2003. Anyway I reinstalled McAfee which
I have been using for a couple of years. Things were still crashing and so
I tried doing a simple system restore to an earlier date. This didn't work,
so I tried another date. To make a long messy story short, after several
failed tries I resorted to the recovery disks. That was a no-go. I got as
far as disk 5 of 6, but it keeps hanging with these different error
messages. One is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, another one is NTLDR is missing,
hit Ctrl Alt Del to restart--which then gives me the same old
merry-go-round. One blue screen with white letter advises me to Disable
Mios Memory options such as caching or shadowing. How do I do this? I
cannot get to safe mode now. Anyone?
 
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Sorry, that was Bios Memory, not Mios
"Annie Woughman" <anniewoughman@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eek:sH9e.6290$Ah5.6064@fe05.lga...
> This all started when I installed AVG anti-virus. Things were going swell
> for a day and a half until I checked for an updates on the AVG which it
> did and all of a sudden programs started crashing. I decided the AVG was
> the problem and uninstalled it. I hate shi**y software that leaves half
> its files on your machine when you uninstall it. The biggest problem was
> the "virus vault" it left in my Outlook 2003. Anyway I reinstalled McAfee
> which I have been using for a couple of years. Things were still crashing
> and so I tried doing a simple system restore to an earlier date. This
> didn't work, so I tried another date. To make a long messy story short,
> after several failed tries I resorted to the recovery disks. That was a
> no-go. I got as far as disk 5 of 6, but it keeps hanging with these
> different error messages. One is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, another one is
> NTLDR is missing, hit Ctrl Alt Del to restart--which then gives me the
> same old merry-go-round. One blue screen with white letter advises me to
> Disable Mios Memory options such as caching or shadowing. How do I do
> this? I cannot get to safe mode now. Anyone?
>
 
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Annie Woughman wrote:
> Sorry, that was Bios Memory, not Mios
> "Annie Woughman" <anniewoughman@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:eek:sH9e.6290$Ah5.6064@fe05.lga...
>
>>This all started when I installed AVG anti-virus. Things were going swell
>>for a day and a half until I checked for an updates on the AVG which it
>>did and all of a sudden programs started crashing. I decided the AVG was
>>the problem and uninstalled it. I hate shi**y software that leaves half
>>its files on your machine when you uninstall it. The biggest problem was
>>the "virus vault" it left in my Outlook 2003. Anyway I reinstalled McAfee
>>which I have been using for a couple of years. Things were still crashing
>>and so I tried doing a simple system restore to an earlier date. This
>>didn't work, so I tried another date. To make a long messy story short,
>>after several failed tries I resorted to the recovery disks. That was a
>>no-go. I got as far as disk 5 of 6, but it keeps hanging with these
>>different error messages. One is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, another one is
>>NTLDR is missing, hit Ctrl Alt Del to restart--which then gives me the
>>same old merry-go-round. One blue screen with white letter advises me to
>>Disable Mios Memory options such as caching or shadowing. How do I do
>>this? I cannot get to safe mode now. Anyone?
>>
>

Since your recovery disks don't work, I don't think the AVG software was
really the problem. Make a boot disk from www.memtest86.com to test your
memory, and if that passes, run disk diagnostics that you probably can
download from the disk vendor. Sounds like you have a hardware failure
in your system, it could be a bad motherboard with dried-out capacitors,
or maybe even a power supply problem. Depending on your tolerance for
frustration, the computer may be a write-off.

-Dave
 
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If the computer runs memory and hard drive diagnostics successfully, perhaps the
best approach is to reformat the hard drive and reload the operating system from
scratch. Do you have any valuable data on the system? If so, is the computer
stable enough for you to bak up the valuable data before doing a reinstall??

.... Ben Myers

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:09:29 -0700, "Annie Woughman" <anniewoughman@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>This all started when I installed AVG anti-virus. Things were going swell
>for a day and a half until I checked for an updates on the AVG which it did
>and all of a sudden programs started crashing. I decided the AVG was the
>problem and uninstalled it. I hate shi**y software that leaves half its
>files on your machine when you uninstall it. The biggest problem was the
>"virus vault" it left in my Outlook 2003. Anyway I reinstalled McAfee which
>I have been using for a couple of years. Things were still crashing and so
>I tried doing a simple system restore to an earlier date. This didn't work,
>so I tried another date. To make a long messy story short, after several
>failed tries I resorted to the recovery disks. That was a no-go. I got as
>far as disk 5 of 6, but it keeps hanging with these different error
>messages. One is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, another one is NTLDR is missing,
>hit Ctrl Alt Del to restart--which then gives me the same old
>merry-go-round. One blue screen with white letter advises me to Disable
>Mios Memory options such as caching or shadowing. How do I do this? I
>cannot get to safe mode now. Anyone?
>
>
 
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"Annie Woughman" <anniewoughman@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eek:sH9e.6290$Ah5.6064@fe05.lga...
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 23:09:29 -0700

This all started when I installed AVG anti-virus. Things were going
swell for a day and a half until I checked for an updates on the
AVG which it did and all of a sudden programs started crashing. I
decided the AVG was the problem and uninstalled it. I hate shi**y
software that leaves half its files on your machine when you
uninstall it. The biggest problem was the "virus vault" it left in
my Outlook 2003...

Hi Annie... I believe you might have judged AVG too quickly. As I have
never had a problem installing AVG on dozens of computers, unless said
computer was already infected with viruses. Now things could go
seriously wrong!

One would think you install anti-viruses software on an infected
computer and it should take care of everything, so what's the problem
right? Well some of these viruses, actually looks for AV software, like
AV software looks for viruses. So who wins?

The answer AFAIK, is the one that was installed first. So in some cases,
the AV software never sees the virus. And the virus can hinder the AV
from doing its job well.

In your case, I believe the worst of the worst has happened! As while
AVG was trying to clean up viruses, the virus(es) were attacking AVG
along with the system files. And the outcome is often a very badly
mangled OS which can be almost impossible for even a guy like me to
clean up (although most of the time, I can still fix it).

It wouldn't mattered which AV you used in a case like this. The outcome
is almost always the same. The safest way I know of to clean a system up
before installing any AV software, is to stop by one of those online AV
scans first. As it is believed that the virus(es) can't attack the AV
running from a remote Internet server. But I wouldn't bet on that
either.

Once again, in your case. It sounds like you had a brand new virus which
wasn't in the definitions files yet. So this virus ran unaffected until
AV received the new one.

... One blue screen with white letter advises me to Disable Mios
Memory options such as caching or shadowing. How do I do this?

Usually you do so by touching a particular key when the computer gets
turned on. This gets you into the BIOS (CMOS) settings. And it is
generally (or is it always?) found in there. No safe mode required. And
yes, I knew you meant BIOS memory. <grin>

David Kinsell's reply is leaning on the idea that you had suffered
hardware failure. Well it could be indeed true! Although the timing with
the new AVG update and the computer falling apart makes me believe this
wasn't just a coincidence.

Ben Myers' reply is also a good one. As if the hardware is okay, this
might be your quickest way out. Although if you do have valuable
information on the hard drive that you don't want to lose, there are
other ways that you won't lose anything and still will be able to start
fresh once again.


Cheers!


______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000
 
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Ok, first a BIG apology to AVG anti-virus. I just spent the last two
days in front of my computer, tearing my hair out. Here's the final scoop:
March 12, I purchased and installed two sticks of PNY 512 DDR 512MB ram.
Last Monday, April 18, I downloaded and installed the AVG. Wednesday there
was an update for the AVG, which installed and then all of a sudden every
program on my machine started crashing (is it any wonder I blamed the newly
installed software?) Anyway, things go so bad I thought I was going to have
to take my machine to the local computer shop. I even called--they had a
five day backlog. I started scouring the internet for clues to all the
error messages, etc. I finally realized it was the new memory. PNY has
always been such a trusted brand, however this stuff was their "Bravo" line.
I read that Cisco were having some terrible problems with their systems that
had Bravo memory.
So, I put the old ram back in, and since my recovery disks were
worthless, to save time and money I simply bought a new copy of WindowXP
upgrade (I had an old Windows ME CD left from an older system to do the
upgrade thing.) I acutally had to install and reinstall five times before I
got it right. At one point my C drive became the F drive. Everything is
just fine now except a couple of drivers that I can't find--the SM Bus
Controller and the Ethernet Controller. I happened to have a network card
on hand that is plug and play, so I can at least get online, but I would
like to get the integrated one on the machine working.
I have another HP, a Pavilion 742n. Is it possible to get these drivers
from that machine? If so can someone walk me through it? If not, can you
tell me where to get these drivers? They don't seem to be on the HP site.
Thanks for your help and input.

P.S. Office Depot exchanged the bad ram for me. More PNY, but NOT the
Bravo stuff.

"Annie Woughman" <anniewoughman@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eek:sH9e.6290$Ah5.6064@fe05.lga...
> This all started when I installed AVG anti-virus. Things were going swell
> for a day and a half until I checked for an updates on the AVG which it
> did and all of a sudden programs started crashing. I decided the AVG was
> the problem and uninstalled it. I hate shi**y software that leaves half
> its files on your machine when you uninstall it. The biggest problem was
> the "virus vault" it left in my Outlook 2003. Anyway I reinstalled McAfee
> which I have been using for a couple of years. Things were still crashing
> and so I tried doing a simple system restore to an earlier date. This
> didn't work, so I tried another date. To make a long messy story short,
> after several failed tries I resorted to the recovery disks. That was a
> no-go. I got as far as disk 5 of 6, but it keeps hanging with these
> different error messages. One is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, another one is
> NTLDR is missing, hit Ctrl Alt Del to restart--which then gives me the
> same old merry-go-round. One blue screen with white letter advises me to
> Disable Mios Memory options such as caching or shadowing. How do I do
> this? I cannot get to safe mode now. Anyone?
>