Weird Pc crash

[Nuclear Winter]

Hello,
I am having some problems with my pc, and I tought you could help.
When I had 128mb ram on my PC (winxp and new PC)It would crash very frequently, sometimes even while using the net. It did get so slow when those crashes happened (almost a freeze, in fact) that even though teh mouse would move OK, the PC would get unusable, as for example it would crash while viewing a page on the net, I´d click to minimize the window of IE and it would take aeons for it to complete the task.I had to reset the PC . It seemed to be related to video cards or to low memory (as programs that were more RAM-video demanding would crash faster). Changed the videocards lots of times, updating and such, then I increased virtual memory (this made it crash a little less while netting, and even allowed me to play civ2), And as people told me it was surely a lack of RAM I have today sucessfuly instaled 512 mb ram. Though it is still crashing.
I am using Win Xp, Nvidia´s GeForce Mx100/200 updated, Intel (R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.70 ghz
Tsr´s open are taskmgr.exe
CTFMON.exe
hpgs2wnf.exe
HPGS2WND.exe
ccApp.exe
svchost.exe
nvsvc32.exe
ccPxySvc.exe
spoolsv.exe
Explorer.EXE
Nsium.EXE
ccEvtMgr.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
SMSS.EXE
system

Please help me,
Nuclear Winter

[Richelieu]

Far fetched but : how big is your hard drive and do you have any space left ?

[Nuclear Winter]

Total Hard disk space 16,5 GB
Used Hard disk space 11,0 GB
5,52 GB free

[Richelieu]

I am guessing that all devices in Device Manager are OK, you ran Windows update and checked for latest BIOS update also ?

[Urban Ranger]

You have too many programs running at the same time. What's this "svchost" thing and why are there 5 instances of it?

[Kirnwaffen]

svchost is the alias windows uses for its services. There is typically one instance for each active service. Disabling is not recommended, unless you know specifically which services you do and don't need.

[Kirnwaffen]

And I don't see anything in there that's atypical for XP. That's actually pretty minimal.

[Kuciwalker]

You have an XP system with only 128 megs of RAM? Where'd you find that anachronism :P

(my really really old Win95 comp had 128 megs)

[Kirnwaffen]

Other things to check:

Motherboard brand/type
Type of RAM
Processor temp
Other hardware installed

Are you certain it's a P4 and not a Celeron?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
And I don't see anything in there that's atypical for XP. That's actually pretty minimal.

That's a lot of who-knows-what is running.

[Kirnwaffen]

Well, the hpgs stuff can go, as can ctfmon. As for just about anything beginning with cc, I'd leave it. That prefix (along with "nav") typically relates to Norton software. You could try disabling these as a troubleshooting step, as they tend to use a lot of memory. I don't think NSUM.EXE is necessary, since I'm not running it, but I'm not entirely sure. It has something to do with media player. Other than that, I don't think you should touch anything else.

[Urban Ranger]

You don't actually need any anti-virus shield running at all times. You can zap that.

[Kirnwaffen]

I think the benefit from disabling Norton in this case would be negligible. 512 MB should be sufficient RAM to run anti-virus during a memory intensive game, let alone a web browser. My reccomendation is still to disable as a troubleshooting step in order to ensure that the program isn't corrupt, and if it isn't the problem, re-enable. My gut feeling is that this is a hardware/OS problem of some kind, rather than a problem with a specific app.

By the way NW, do you have SP1? As I recall there was a known issue with IE before SP1 which could cause it to eat CPU cycles like no other.

[Richelieu]

BTW : What error message (if any) do you get when it crashes ? What are your Virtual Memory settings ?

[Skanky Burns]

Doesn't the event viewer show things that are causing problems, and sometimes what is causing crashes?