Need help with hang ups

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Arrrkkkk…..problems in paradise!

I’m running Windows XP and what is happening is that it is hanging up so that only solution is to do a hard shutdown. When I came back on line after doing this 3 times in a one hour period, it would not log on but instead got a blue screen with an error message that ended with it saying something to the effect of ‘ Windows was shutting down to prevent damage to the computer.’ Also believe it said something about a hardware OR problem with a newly installed program. No new program installed so must be hardware…or was it ‘hard drive’? (mmmmm..)

This was a couple of days ago and I did the F8 thing; system restore thing; and I did the safe mode deal and ran several scans as well. Sorry but after several tries of this and that, I have become confused on what specifically the original error message said or when it said it. The various virus scans and malware scans came up with no virus/Trojans.

What I do have written down is at one point I received this message as the problem: PartMgr.sys PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

Any ideas of what this means or how to fix it?

And, what I am now noting is that these hang-ups occur when I have my Office Outlook open. One example of the hang-up is when I click the X to close anything (mail; word doc; web site; a picture; anything I have open), it doesn’t close right away….it often says program not responding. Then, whatever is being closed will just close partway…still see a piece of it on the screen but cannot do anything with it. Even going the’ ctrl-alt-delete…..end task’ route doesn’t work as still get the ‘…not responding’ message. Most will eventually close but jeez….can see it is laboring to do so. I’m a multi-tasker so it’s not unusual for me to have several programs open that I’m working at one time.

Anyone of knowledge reading this inquiry of help should be painfully aware by now of my computer ignorance Please bear this in mind when responding.
I was going to download and run Reimage Repair – saw advertised on Secrets newsletter – but got freaked when got pop up message that “the download contained programs that some people would consider adware, spyware, or other potential unwanted programs.” Anyone familiar with Reimage?

O.K., I realize that I may be as clear as a glass of milk as I try to talk about my computer issues. Perhaps someone can decipher what I’m trying to say enough to be able to ask me more questions and help me get this computer going again.

My sanity is dependent on this little silver laptop….as well as our fishing business. Any saviors out there to help out the Jungle Lady?

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Can’t help ya but am interested in hearing how your problem gets solved. I too have a problem with some of my programs closing and see one thru another as it closes. My computer runs soooooo slow sometimes and then I get the virtual memory low warning sometimes. Would love to buy a new computer but in this economy and having been laid off several months ago I must keep this one alive for as long as possible. About a year or so ago I paid for the reimage fix and it worked for awhile but things keep going from slow to slower. I have tried taking a lot of the games off and putting them on an external drive hoping that would help but to no avail. I will keep watching here to see if your problem gets solved and maybe mine will too.

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Yes, it could be a bad HD. But there are some things you can look at. How much free disk space disk space do you have? Ideally, you should have 20% free space. Windows and the MS Office products just like to have a lot of available disk space. They don’t really use it though. It may be that the machine is trying to increase the page file size but can’t because of low disk space. It won’t always tell you that’s the problem. Clean out your temp directories and browser cache. Delete anything else that’s not necessary. If you are confident that you are not going to uninstall any Microsoft patches and service packs, you can delete any of the folders under c:Windows that start with $Nt. You must configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files to see these.

The kind of things you are seeing can also be caused by corupt OS files, and/or heavy fragmentation. Run chkdsk to look for and fix disk errors. To do this open a command prompt and type “chkdsk /f” without the quotes. It will tell you the disk is locked and ask if you want to run it on the next boot. Answer yes, and then reboot. It can sometimes take a long time to run, so be patient. When that’s done run a defrag. Then run it a second time. Better yet, download a free one that can do a better job: Disk Defrag tools.

Finally, and this is the hardest thing to do, is go to run and type MSCONFIG. Under the Startup tab, look for things that you don’t want running. Things like the MS Office startup that serve little purpose but eat up memory and can sometime interfere with an otherwise smooth computing experience. If you are not sure what something is, leave it alone. You don’t want to accidentally disable your video card or a wireless device.

There is some more tweaking I could talk about, mostly in regard to Windows services that most people, even corporations don’t need. But I think I’ve given you more than enough to chew on for now. I wish you the best on this. It can be kind of time consuming to troubleshoot.

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Also, look in the Event logs for any errors listed.

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Jungle Lady,
I didn’t see it mentioned but you might try a repair on Outlook. Go to Add/Remove in Control Panel and select “Microsoft Office 2xxx” and Change. Or if you just have Outllok, then chose it. The change will bring up a menu of Remove, Repair, or Re-install. Chose Repair and check box for repair shortcus. Should take abuout 20 minutes. If you removed you install files you will need your CD.

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