Avast!4 Pro and Win XP SP2

[jimn]

Not "blaming" Avast! for anything here... just asking.

I installed Win XP SP2 (on PRO) last week.
Since then I have had over a dozen "sudden freeze" conditions, where NOTHING (not yelling, just emphasizing) works at all - not the mouse, not the keyboard, not anything!!!

All I can do is to power off and reboot.

I am trying to isolate, if possible, the cause of this major irritation. I have already removed the most suspect item - a NDAS external storage unit that sometimes presents flaky situations.
I have just now started running with AVAST! turned OFF (not yelling, just emphasizing) and will run that way for a day or two, but really don't like that idea.

Any ideas/help will be much appreciated.

Jim (still a novice re AVAST!)

[Eddy]

I would say disable things that are not especilly needed for the system to run from loading at boottime. At least it will rule some things out.

Also change the settings on XP's logging future (system & event log) to as high as possible and see if they can tell you anything.

And is it really freezing or does the system starts working again after several minutes? Let it be freezed for let's say ten minutes to make sure it really freezes or not.

[Lisandro]

Have you scheduled any scanning?
Does the problem occur while the background scheduled scanning was running?

[jimn]

Difficult to say. It seems somewhat random, twice even happening when I was away from the machine and the screensaver is running (but frozen in place).

All that I can say I've noticed every time is the the HD light seems to be coming on every second or so while the freeze is in process.

regards

[jimn]

Sorry... only saw 1 reply. This one addresses others.

I have let it sit for more than 10 minutes with no change.

I have not turned on any automatic scanning at intervals or anything like that.

I will look at changing XP log settings.

Thanks

[Lisandro]

Difficult to say. It seems somewhat random, twice even happening when I was away from the machine and the screensaver is running (but frozen in place).

Turn off the screen saver module to see what you get...
I mean, change the screen saver of your computer to another one.

[jimn]

I can report that I had the freeze again while AVAST! WAS OFF.

So I can now write this off as NOT being a cause of the freezes.

Thanks to all for your help.
Jim

[Lisandro]

Do you want to follow trying to discover the error?
Which firewall do you use? If you disable it (while off line) will any crash happen? Do you see any unusual RAM or CPU usage (CRTL+ALT+DEL > Processes)  

[jimn]

Hi Technical,

With XP SP2 I *had* let the firewall run, but after I had some trouble with my VPN connections I disabled it. My router has a NAT thingy that I believe is helpful in that regard, and my ISP does scan for viruses in e-mail.

I sure wold have much more information if ctrl+alt+del worked, but that's dead too when the freeze happens.

My suspicion is RAM - maybe after it warns up. BUT the paced blinking of the HD indicator when the system freezes is confusing me.

I will for now keep trying little things and see where it gets me. At some point, though, I suspect I'll have to remove RAM chips 1 at a time to see if that helps.

Thanks and cheers