System hangs at Welcome screen

For two mornings in a row now when I turned my computer on, the system got
as far as the Welcome screen and then froze.  The cursor did respond to the
mouse but aside from that nothing worked, not even Ctl-Alt_Del.  I powered
off, waited, then on again and it came up perfectly normally.

Windows XP, fully updated.  Is there a RAM test, and/or a disk test, to
locate intermittent problems?  Or any other suggestions?

Next time you get it started Renny go straight to the Event Viewer,and see if

Next time you get it started Renny go straight to the Event Viewer,
and see if anything shows there ie. errors/warnings.

You can d/load Hard drive diagnostics from most HD manufacturers.

If you`ve got a XP CD SP3, you can do a SFC scan, which will check all
the system files are Ok.

Memtest can be d/loaded here www.memtest86.com/

bw..

ttheredYee, yes, and yes.

t
the
red

Yee, yes, and yes.

Powering off is really not a good idea but sometimes there is no
alternative.  You need to figure it out or you will have a new topic
called "my system will no longer boot".

You can verify the integrity of your file system by running chkdsk the
next time your system reboots.  To do that, click Start, Run and in
the box enter:

chkdsk /r

Click OK and respond in the affirmative, reboot.

When chkdsk runs automatically on a reboot, the results are shown in
the Event Viewer Application
log sourced by Winlogon:

Event Type:	Information
Event Source:	Winlogon
Event Category:	None
Event ID:	1001
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.

39070048 KB total disk space.
25151976 KB in 78653 files.
48256 KB in 10264 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
237080 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
13632736 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
9767512 total allocation units on disk.
3408184 allocation units available on disk.

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


Run a test of your RAM with memtest86+ (I know it is boring and will
cost you a CD).

Memtest86+ is a more up to date version of the old memtest program and
they are not the same.

The memtest86+ will not run under Windows, so you will need to
download the ISO file and create a
bootable CD, boot on that and then run the memtest86+ program.

If even a single error is reported that is a failure and should make
you suspicious of your RAM.

If you have multiple sticks of RAM you may need to run the test on
them one at a time and
change them out to isolate the failure to a particular single stick.
Always keep at least
the first bank of RAM occupied so the test will find something to do
and there is enough to
boot your system.

Sometimes, reseating the RAM in the slots will relieve the error but a
failure is still cause
for suspicion.

The file and instructions are here:

http://www.memtest.org/

If someone says to run memtest86, you can say that you know memtest86+
supercedes memtest86
and here is why:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86

Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware
detection programs:

Malwarebytes (MBAM):  http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS):  http://www.superantispyware.com/

Hi Jose,I ran chkdsk as instructed and the results

Hi Jose,

I ran chkdsk as instructed and the results are:

**********************************

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date:  2/8/2010
Time:  11:28:42 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: YOUR-F78BF48CE2
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is HP_PAVILION.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 768 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 768 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 768 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

70829639 KB total disk space.
24681780 KB in 122526 files.
45804 KB in 10675 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
242195 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
45859860 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
17707409 total allocation units on disk.
11464965 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
80 0d 02 00 5d 08 02 00 39 c8 02 00 00 00 00 00  ....]...9.......
61 31 00 00 02 00 00 00 88 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00  a1..............
2e 97 8a 05 00 00 00 00 a4 46 16 72 00 00 00 00  .........F.r....
d2 0b 57 0c 00 00 00 00 20 de 0b 7a 03 00 00 00  ..W..... ..z....
ac 99 06 7a 02 00 00 00 c8 f4 3d 81 06 00 00 00  ...z......=.....
30 79 df b2 00 00 00 00 a8 39 07 00 9e de 01 00  0y.......9......
00 00 00 00 00 d0 74 e2 05 00 00 00 b3 29 00 00  ......t......)..

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

**********************************

Looks to me like there is no problem here.  I will next run MemTest86+, and
report back when it is done.

Thanks for your help.

Renny


Yee, yes, and yes.

Powering off is really not a good idea but sometimes there is no
alternative.  You need to figure it out or you will have a new topic
called "my system will no longer boot".

You can verify the integrity of your file system by running chkdsk the
next time your system reboots.  To do that, click Start, Run and in
the box enter:

chkdsk /r

Click OK and respond in the affirmative, reboot.

When chkdsk runs automatically on a reboot, the results are shown in
the Event Viewer Application
log sourced by Winlogon:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon

Progress Report #2:Yesterday morning, after having been off overnight, the

Progress Report #2:

Yesterday morning, after having been off overnight, the computer booted up
without problem.  Then I ran MemTest86+ overnight, it reported no errors.
This morning it again booted up OK but of course it had not been cold.  And
here is the System Info:

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name YOUR-F78BF48CE2
System Manufacturer HP Pavilion 061
System Model PU131AV-ABA a1050y
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~3000 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 3.28, 1/23/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name YOUR-F78BF48CE2\HP_Owner
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 488.61 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 2.38 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Hi Jose,Here is Progress Report #3:I ran a full scan of MalwareBytes , took

Hi Jose,

Here is Progress Report #3:

I ran a full scan of MalwareBytes , took about an hour, reported 0
infections found.

Also ran a QuickScan on SuperAntiSpyware.  It found 65 threats, but they
were all tracking cookies, and they got quarantined.  And AVG Free is my
AntiVirus program.

I should also mention that I have not made any changes to the system in
about two months (other than standard updates).

Is there anything else I should do to get to the bottom of this
intermittently (only twice so far) erratic behavior?

Thanks again for your help.

Renny



Yee, yes, and yes.

Powering off is really not a good idea but sometimes there is no
alternative.  You need to figure it out or you will have a new topic
called "my system will no longer boot".

You can verify the integrity of your file system by running chkdsk the
next time your system reboots.  To do that, click Start, Run and in
the box enter:

chkdsk /r

Click OK and respond in the affirmative, reboot.

When chkdsk runs automatically on a reboot, the results are shown in
the Event Viewer Application
log sourced by Winlogon:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.

39070048 KB total disk space.
25151976 KB in 78653 files.
48256 KB in 10264 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
237080 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
13632736 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
9767512 total allocation units on disk.
3408184 allocation units available on disk.

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


Run a test of your RAM with memtest86+ (I know it is boring and will
cost you a CD).

Memtest86+ is a more up to date version of the old memtest program and
they are not the same.

The memtest86+ will not run under Windows, so you will need to
download the ISO file and create a
bootable CD, boot on that and then run the memtest86+ program.

If even a single error is reported that is a failure and should make
you suspicious of your RAM.

If you have multiple sticks of RAM you may need to run the test on
them one at a time and
change them out to isolate the failure to a particular single stick.
Always keep at least
the first bank of RAM occupied so the test will find something to do
and there is enough to