Windows XP STOP Error 7E [SOLVED] I win... (was SVCHOST.EVE causing problems)

[stilly]

I have not had to hunt these down too much but it seems that the DNS resolver is pushing the cpu up to 100% and it just started doing it. Nothing really changed with the computer. It was fine last night, they left it on overnight and this morning it was stuck at 100% cpu usage.

I restored to yesterday- no change.
I cleared out the startup apps.- no change
I did a repair install with XP Pro- Little change, then no change, but it is more manageable now.

The computer is a Pentium 4 single core with 2GB of RAM and a sata HD + 2 PATA opticals.

I ran process killer (sysinternals) and found the culprit I THINK, according to the program it showed DNS RESOLVER as being the process that was being a jerk.

I looked for a few ways to fix and I found maybe editing the host file to make it too big could do it, so I gave it an MVP host file instead of the long one it might have had. Kinda helped, but not really.

Tonight I am heading to Microcenter to get a new case/mobo/cpu/ram/dvd drive and a few other odds and ends and then tomorrow I plan to show up and take the HD out and drop it into the new computer. Then reconnect the booting strings, take care of the mass storage controller issues and the intel PPM files and THEN hunt down the process that is causing me issues.

I just want to be well versed when I go to war in the morning. I saw an option to make a full memory dump and a mini dump. Would either of those have a solution or at least give me a good idea what is going on? I was going to look up what the DNS resolver is and why it would run at such high CPU. I gotta head out now though so I will get to that tonight hopefully.

Anyways, anything I might have missed? Thanks for any info on this.

[problemchild]

download and run combofix, then malwarebyes....

[meaty-btz]

process explorer will show you what service being hosted is eating your proc time.

[sd_shooter]

Run malwarebites, then stop surfing naughty websites.

[poriggity]

Malwarebytes for the win.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[nick]

As was already mentioned, Process Explorer from Sysinternals/Microsoft will help you identify the culprit. As was also mentioned, a malware scan wouldn't hurt either (and Malwarebytes works pretty well).

[stilly]

Well, she is a lawyer and all over the place so it would not surprise me if she got hit with something. I will be sure to run a scan tomorrow in the morning.

I will grab combofix as well and see if it works out.

Thanks fellas.

Tonight was a *****. I made it to Microcenter but on the way home the front tire shredded on the truck and I had to wait for roadside assistance. The little tire iron in the truck did not want to loosen up the lug nuts so I decided to stop so that I did not sheer anything off.

Heh. Those tires are 13+ years old. I always wondered how one of them would blow out... Made me miss Person of Interest...

[Mute]

Have you tried disabling DNS caching?

'net stop dnscache' from command line

Do this after flushing the dns cache - ipconfig /flushdns

[klewan]

My new laptop was freezing up and slow loading pages. Went to "task manager", McAfee was using 65% of the CPU. I only had a couple of days left in the free month, so I deleted it. I'm going to try and see how well MS Defender does...

[stilly]

Sorry Mute. I did not even get that far.

I went there this morning, did combofix and malware bytes without even caring to look around and problem was solved. It never got the chance to happen again...

Now there is a new problem. Let me tell all about it because I just spent all day there trying to fix this ONE damn problem and I THINK I might know what it is, but damn I can not fix it yet...

So this is the NEW scenario now. I am getting a stop error ( STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x00000000, 0xB84C30BC, 0xB84C2DB8) ) EVERYTIME I try to boot into normal Windows XP Pro. However, it has no issues booting into Windows XP Pro in Enable VGA Mode or Safe Mode.

They had a Dell Optiplex or whatever it was, those big gray towers that you press on the top and bottom and open up the sides on a hinge. They had an overheating graffix card last year until I replaced it with a used AGP Nvidia Quadro FX card. It has been running fine until yesterday when it flipped out and I was called in.

Today I showed up with a new case/mobo/cpu/ram/box of video cards and took out the old HD they have and dropped it into the new computer I built last night. Everything went as expected. I booted up, got the BSOD, booted into Hiren's, fixed the hd controllers, then went to the windows/system32 and renamed the intelppm.sys file. They HAD an Intel P4 in the Dell case, now they have an AMD FX4130 with an ASUS board and 4GB of Kingston RAM plus new Lite-On DVD burner (because the old opticals were PATA and this board only uses SATA. Same Seagate 160GB HD though.

Anyways, I spent from about 11:30- till tonight at around 7:30pm and I STILL can not get windows to work right. It will NOT boot up normally. I have to boot into VGA mode or Safe Mode. If I boot up normally I get a BSOD 7E and it is ALWAYS the same damn numbers. I had a strong suspicion that it was graphics related so now I am trying to get an understanding on how it is that I can boot into VGA mode (which uses a restricted version of my current driver) or safe mode (no drives for graphics) but NOT normal mode. I have tried two different drivers, I have tried swapping otu cards, I have removed ALL of the nvidia stuff (1.5 page printed document on how to do that) I have checked for that intelppm.sys file again and have come up empty.

Does ANYONE know what exactly is happening when you boot into VGA mode? Is it JUST the driver for the graphics? Is the solution to just keep trying new drivers until you no longer get a BSOD? I tried editing the registry, changing control sets (just in case I missed something) deleting new files, EVERYTHING. I am about out of hair to pull out. NOTHING seems to work. Now another odd thing too is that when I try to d/l drivers online, it is hit and miss, but mainly a lot of drivers seem to d/l at around 30kb down speed. I mean, 118MG file to take me 5+ hours? NO. I kept stopping those downloads. I tried to get the newer MS IE 8 (because I am using IE 6) and that pretty much told me that it was gonna take about 48 minutes to d/l. This is a dsl wired building and I never had any issues before.

I read online that the ONLY difference between NORMAL Windows XP and VGA Windows XP is the driver issue. SO, I WAS able to install all system drivers that I thought about, I was able to install all that needed to be installed from the disc that shipped with the mobo. The only problem that I am having is WHAT am I missing here?

Do I need to grab about 20 sets of drivers and put them on a dvd and take them down there and just keep trying different ones?

I was thinking that I BET if I got a PCI-E version of a QuadroFX card and installed it that my problems would all go away. SO, I have a bid in on one now, but seriously, there HAS to be an easier issue for this.

Right now, a format and reinstallation of Windows XP is out of the question. I do have it scheduled for a repair installation on Friday when things calm down a bit.

I have swapped out video cards and no change. (QuadroFX on the way now though).
I have gone back and forth all over the web today trying to figure out the issue or what file needs to be deleted or replaced and I have drawn blanks.

BTW, I do not need any lectures on how I should just wipe it all and restart to save time. I am NOT that kind of tech and this should have been an easy fix. There is also simply too much data to just move over the network and put down somewhere else and then partition and wipe/reinstall. Too many shortcuts, too many installed programs and resources. I do not wanna deal with that headache. I am just wondering what it is that I missed here.

I am NOT going to leave it at that. I have a reputation for being able to fix these issues, but sometimes they take a little longer then other times it seems...

I am open for suggestions for when I go back on Friday.

[BakoJ]

Regardless of whether you want to hear it or not, a clean install is in order.

You changed all components except for HDD. Your system32 has files related to your hardware components. Yes, you probably have one driver issue but the time you're spending to find it isn't worth the hassle. In the time you've taken, you could've hooked up an external HD, copied files, shortcuts, etc, reinstalled, copied back and been done with it.

In my experience, my customers want me to take the quickest path since they're paying me per hour. Case in point, I often will encourage a business customer to buy a new PC instead work on a machine older than 5 years if my time exceeds the cost of a new PC. I can have them going in two hours instead of take 8 hours @ ~$100/hr.

I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong. Hell, I used to do it exactly the way you're doing it. My mission is to keep my customers' tech up and running, eliminate downtime and right-side their fleet. The value I bring equates to overall cost savings for them. I just hope I provided a different perspective. Good luck with your project.

[stilly]

Regardless of whether you want to hear it or not, a clean install is in order.

You changed all components except for HDD. Your system32 has files related to your hardware components. Yes, you probably have one driver issue but the time you're spending to find it isn't worth the hassle. In the time you've taken, you could've hooked up an external HD, copied files, shortcuts, etc, reinstalled, copied back and been done with it.

In my experience, my customers want me to take the quickest path since they're paying me per hour. Case in point, I often will encourage a business customer to buy a new PC instead work on a machine older than 5 years if my time exceeds the cost of a new PC. I can have them going in two hours instead of take 8 hours @ ~$100/hr.

I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong. Hell, I used to do it exactly the way you're doing it. My mission is to keep my customers' tech up and running, eliminate downtime and right-side their fleet. The value I bring equates to overall cost savings for them. I just hope I provided a different perspective. Good luck with your project.

No. What you say makes perfect sense AND logically is the best thing to do. I hate that I kept someone from their computer today, but I had them get on their laptop in the other room instead.

I was thinking about WHY I tend to do this time and time again and this is the conclusion that I have come to. I wanna win this puzzle. No seriously, I think that I might also have a valid reason for going about this method, it will take about 3+ hours to migrate all of their data OFF, then wipe and reinstall the OS and all of their programs and MS Office, and OH, I failed to mention that this computer was given to her from someone else. So even though their office 2007 was legit at the time and XP was legit from Dell and several other programs that had been paid for, I do not know if I have those same versions available to me or them still. (I know, magic key finder will work here) and I am sure that I could do that like I did on a previous computer, but I have thought about it and decided that if I could spend who knows how much time here, when I find the FIX, it should only take ten minutes or so the next time this happens (and it has happened to me so far about 2-3 times in life. Since I plan to do this kind of work for people for the rest of my life if I can, I think it is worth it to know the fix and maybe even a better understanding on an OS and how it works, so that next time I can simply FIX it instead of spending 3+ hours to reinstall and prep and move things back and forth for someone. I want to be THAT GUY that can get it done and does quality work.

I DO hear what you are saying though, I think idealy it would be good to know when to do as you say and when to work it out.

[BakoJ]

LOL. I hear you brother. I feel the exact same way you do about solving the puzzle. We are Dr. House without the team. I love solving the puzzle myself and used to get sucked into the trap often.

I had to learn to take a step back and take a quick assessment before I spent more than an hour of the customers' money. I ended up with happier customers and many more business referrals. In the end, I had more time and capacity to get paid for more business. But I know how good it feels to overcome the challenge and solve the puzzle.

You sound like a great, honest tech who cares about his customers. Keep up the good work! There aren't many of us out there.

[ke6guj]

Regardless of whether you want to hear it or not, a clean install is in order.

You changed all components except for HDD. Your system32 has files related to your hardware components. Yes, you probably have one driver issue but the time you're spending to find it isn't worth the hassle. In the time you've taken, you could've hooked up an external HD, copied files, shortcuts, etc, reinstalled, copied back and been done with it.

In my experience, my customers want me to take the quickest path since they're paying me per hour. Case in point, I often will encourage a business customer to buy a new PC instead work on a machine older than 5 years if my time exceeds the cost of a new PC. I can have them going in two hours instead of take 8 hours @ ~$100/hr.

I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong. Hell, I used to do it exactly the way you're doing it. My mission is to keep my customers' tech up and running, eliminate downtime and right-side their fleet. The value I bring equates to overall cost savings for them. I just hope I provided a different perspective. Good luck with your project.

yup, I'll take one or two swings at a troublesome computer. after that, I swap it out for another computer, or, pop in a new HD and install windows on that. Then, we have the old HD that we can still go through and copy out any important docs.

[Mute]

No. What you say makes perfect sense AND logically is the best thing to do. I hate that I kept someone from their computer today, but I had them get on their laptop in the other room instead.

I was thinking about WHY I tend to do this time and time again and this is the conclusion that I have come to. I wanna win this puzzle. No seriously, I think that I might also have a valid reason for going about this method, it will take about 3+ hours to migrate all of their data OFF, then wipe and reinstall the OS and all of their programs and MS Office, and OH, I failed to mention that this computer was given to her from someone else. So even though their office 2007 was legit at the time and XP was legit from Dell and several other programs that had been paid for, I do not know if I have those same versions available to me or them still. (I know, magic key finder will work here) and I am sure that I could do that like I did on a previous computer, but I have thought about it and decided that if I could spend who knows how much time here, when I find the FIX, it should only take ten minutes or so the next time this happens (and it has happened to me so far about 2-3 times in life. Since I plan to do this kind of work for people for the rest of my life if I can, I think it is worth it to know the fix and maybe even a better understanding on an OS and how it works, so that next time I can simply FIX it instead of spending 3+ hours to reinstall and prep and move things back and forth for someone. I want to be THAT GUY that can get it done and does quality work.

I DO hear what you are saying though, I think idealy it would be good to know when to do as you say and when to work it out.

As a former tech, I understand completely. I had the same mentality. However, if my client is going to get billed for my time, I do my best to minimize their expense.