Michael wrote:
>In Normal Mode
>the computer locks up in about 5 to 10 minutes
>or Reboots. In Safe Mode with Networking, the
>computer is perfectly stable>>


First eliminate overheating by checking that all fans are running and clean 
and that there is no dust buildup in the case. Clean all vents.

If that is not the problem, then you probably have a software conflict with 
something that is running at normal startup but not running in Safe Mode.

Either via a good startup manager, or by running msconfig/startup, untick 
everything set to run at startup. I mean EVERYTHING that isn't absolutely 
essential.

See if that fixes the problem. If now OK, add back whatever startups you 
really need---most are really not essential. Remember that the less you 
have running in the background, the better performance you will have.

The problem may not necessarily be caused by any one application---more 
often that not, it's two or more apps running together that fight each 
other and cause these lockups. Alone, each app may be fine.

You might need a lot of trial, error, and inspired guesswork.

If you want to dig deeper, download Autoruns (free) which will give you a 
list of everything, including all system stuff, which loads at startup. Be 
careful disabling anything here, as you could easily lock yourself out of 
windows by disabling some vital system file or driver. Autoruns displays 
all the system processes that are normally hidden from view (there may be 
hundreds of them).

I'm assuming you can update all your spybot and antivirus databases OK. 
There are viruses which can cause rebooting, but most of these will disable 
your ability to update so that they can escape detection if they got into 
your computer before the relevant updates.

Finally, download update and run freeware Malwarebytes and/or 
Superantispyware and run full system scans with these. Spybot seems to have 
fallen rather out of favour these days. If you have problems running or 
updating either of those programs, it's a sure sign your computer is still 
infected.

If either of these programs detects any nasties, run the scans again, as it 
sometimes needs several passes until the system is fully clean. The reason 
for that is that malware can self-replicate itself as it gets deleted.
Malwarebytes is particularly effective at getting rid of these stubborn 
nasties.

Don Penlington


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