Jeremy

Follow the step for the Ultimate Boot CD to determine whether it is your HDD or RAM. Are you installing any programs after your fresh install?

Download the Ultimate Boot CD v4.0, burn it to a CD, boot to it on your laptop and test both your RAM with MemTest and your HDD with the appropriate tool. If everything checks out and it's not a hardware problem, follow these steps: If you have Norton installed, please use this tool to remove it. Use CCleaner to clean out the temp/cache on your PC. If you're not one to clean things out on a regular basis, you'll likely clear out anywhere from 300 MB to 5 GBs of files. Use jv16 PowerTools 2006's Registry Cleaner on Aggressive Mode to scan, fix and remove invalid registry entries. Be sure to make a backup of the removed entries when it provides you with that option prior to removal, incase something is corrupted. This is unlikely to happen as this registry cleaner is significantly more intelligent than most other typical cleaners. Afterwards, use the Registry Compactor feature to defragment your registry. Many people don't believe this affects performance at all. I have experienced differently. It will not hurt anything and it's a good experience to try it and see for yourself. Use JKDefrag v3.7 or a trial version of Ultimate Defrag, Diskeeper or PerfectDisk to defragment your HDD(s). Make sure to perform a Boot-Time defrag as well. Spyware: Download, install and update both Ad-Aware SE Personal v1.06R1 (or Ad-Aware 2007 Beta 4) and Spybot S&D v1.4. Do full system scans with both and clean/fix any infections they report. Viruses: Download, install and update Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621. Do a full system scan and let it clean anything it reports. Reboot if an infection cannot be initially cleaned/deleted. Kaspersky's trial lasts 30 days. If you wish to use this product for one year legally, use the AOL version labeled ActiveVirusShield. If you prefer freeware then use Avast! Home Edition v4.7 or AntiVir v7.00.03.02. The latter has an even higher detection rate than Kaspersky and NOD32. For more information about anti-virus products, please visit http://www.av-comparatives.org.

Perhaps it's the onboard one enabled in the BIOS? You can also right-click on it in Device Manager, click Properties, go to the Details tab and select Hardware ID from the drop-down menu. Copy and paste that into Google and see what device shows up.

What's the first two things nowadays you check for when you receive an application error? 1. Check for OS compatibility. 2. Reinstall the program.

I use Nero Lite Micro and leave out the AudioCD, Express, Help and VideoCD support so all I have is what's needed to burn other stuff. Works flawlessly everytime and I've burned 100s of DVDs.

There's likely a setting for it in Norton's hard-to-navigate options to disable that. Or use AutoRuns or Strun.exe to disable/delete any unwanted start-up entries. Also, this tool is a godsend.

Download the Ultimate Boot CD v4.0, burn it to CD, boot to it and test your memory with MemTest and also do a HDD test with the appropriate tool just in case. I would also recommend you do a virus scan with a different scanner such as Kaspersky / ActiveVirusShield, Avast or AntiVir (very high detection rates) as I am not sure about PC-Cillin's detection rate, it could be missing something that Kaspersky would detect and thus you would remain infected despite an A-OK from PC-Collin.

@Idontwantspam, I have no such issues with VirtualBox. What happens on one PC may not necessarily occur on another.

You've disabled Plug and Play? Start > Run > services.msc > Plug and Play > Set as Automatic and Started. Reboot. If it is and your system isn't detecting USB devices then you may have a bad motherboard. How old is your system? What specifically do you mean by "start automatically"? If you're referring to the window that appears after you connect a digital camera for example, that asks you what you want the default action to be upon recognition of the device, that is AutoRun. If you've disabled AutoRun then read this page for instructions on how to re-enable it.

What are your system specs? Download and run Dial-A-Fix (check everything off) and click "Go". Go into your Event Viewer: Start > Run > eventvwr ...and look up any errors (Red X's) under Application and System and take any relevant Event ID numbers to EventID.Net and match up the descriptions for the the error with the one you are receiving. Make sure your device drivers, including chipset, are up-to-date. As a troubleshooting step you could reinstall them to see if this resolves your problem. If you have Norton installed, please use this tool to remove it. Use CCleaner to clean out the temp/cache on your PC. If you're not one to clean things out on a regular basis, you'll likely clear out anywhere from 300 MB to 5 GBs of files. You can also clear out your start-up entries with this program. Remove all that look unfamiliar. Use JKDefrag v3.7 or a trial version of Ultimate Defrag, Diskeeper or PerfectDisk to defragment your HDD(s). Make sure to perform a Boot-Time defrag as well. Spyware: Download, install and update both Ad-Aware SE Personal v1.06R1 (or Ad-Aware 2007 Beta 4) and Spybot S&D v1.4. Do full system scans with both and clean/fix any infections they report. Viruses: Download, install and update Kaspersky Anti-Virus v6.0.2.621. Do a full system scan and let it clean anything it reports. Reboot if an infection cannot be initially cleaned/deleted. Kaspersky's trial lasts 30 days. If you wish to use this product for one year legally, use ActiveVirusShield, which is the exact same thing but with AOL's name on it. Do these steps help your problem?

This is not a computer glitch, it's just that developers want you to use their software so they pay more attention to the installer than the uninstaller. Files are registry entries usually always get left behind. I'll give you an example of what I do. I switched from Nero to InfraRecorder last night so after I uninstalled Nero I did a search for folders called "Nero" and/or "Ahead". I also searched the registry with JV16 PowerTools' Registry Finder (or you could use RegSeeker which is freeware) for keys called "Nero" and/or "Ahead". This way I manually clean out every trace of the uninstalled program.

It depends on what he needs his laptop for. If for general purposes, XP Home will do fine.

The fact of that matter is TinyXP probably has more removed or more files hacked to get such a low memory usage at the expense of functionality. At some point, you're not going to have anything left of an OS even if you manage to get the RAM usage to a minimum. I didn't mean to offend you, the main point is that you're better off with good hardware than slimming your OS down and lossing functionality.

I've also heard nothing but excellent things about Pioneer drives. An old friend of mine has floor to ceiling boxes/stacks of burnt media that he's literally been trying to burn out his Pioneer but it won't quit on him.

Excellent job on the troubleshooting before posting! You are a shining example for many others to follow in the future. It could be the HDD, I don't see mention of you testing it. We usually assume that even though something is brand new, it couldn't possibly be the culprit. However, there is only one way to know for sure.

That's why I suggested he backup his files to CD/DVD or another HDD.

Make a backup of your data? Create a second partition for storage, so if your OS gets hosed and you have to reformat, it'll just be the OS partition and not your storage partition. Burn to CD/DVD and handle them gently. For data recovery software use R-Studio. Fix a broken HDD? The only option is to buy a new HDD or get it replaced through the warranty if it has one. A Seagate SATA2 320GB 16MB @ NCIX is $100 CAD. Doesn't take long to save up for stuff like that nowadays.

Start saving. The performance is in your hardware, not how many files are on your HDD.

What do you use your PC for? How much memory does your system have?

Those are under Accessories. You can remove all drivers that you either have no use for or ones for which you'll be integrating your own.

If you are unsure what it is used for, do not remove it. Granted that there is a lot of legacy functionality in Windows that is replaced by 3rd party utilities, but people who try to go the extra mile usually always come back with something not working properly and wonder if there is a way to fix it without redoing the entire process. The answer is no. You can remove unneeded languages, keyboard layouts, drivers and multimedia components and reduce your ISO a good 60-70%. That's all I do nowadays. I don't remove any Services. I just disable them and if I receive any errors in my Event Log Viewer, I re-enable some. The true benefit to performance is making sure you have good hardware, a clean system (CCleaner), a defragmented HDD and lightweight software that doesn't take up enormous amounts of resources (Norton for example).

No - but you can do it yourself. Just type the words in the search box at the top of the page.

I wasn't insulting you. I meant people in general, and I just finished watching George Carlin. I hope the counter makes those who watch it for at least 60 seconds realize that they could be next! lol...

Which is to be expected by anyone who has a clue. People are dying and being born constantly. I googled for "Real-Time Birth Toll Counter" and found nothing. I wonder why that is... I guess people are more curious about how many people just got beheaded as opposed to how many women just had c-sections. Anyway, 120 people a minute dying...that's 432,000 a day. That's almost half a million. But you just don't notice a decline in the population, but rather an increase so that means more people are being born than dying/being killed. How bloody interesting...

Real-Time Death Toll Counter Play some 1st person shooter for an hour and then check the grand total. I wonder how many of those are caused by poor eating habits, lazy lifestyle and not paying attention...