Avast cause Win98SE to hang on restart

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
21

TimeTraveller, when you did “fdisk” did you delete non dos partitions?

Only ask because I had problems bringing a Dell back to life without using it’s restore disk. I also used a retail 98 disk (first edition).

My problems were with the drivers for the motherboard (Intel) but the mobo drivers were (how do I say this without getting a law suit filed against me) … it would seem that some firmware on the mobo was written specifically for Dell, so an update for a retail mobo didn’t install the “correct” driver version. In my case it was soundcard issues (onboard).

Is it an Intel board inside your machine?

22

If you need to “look” inside a system EVEREST is a very handy util for that. Displays your hardware and much more.

23

Thanks Eddy,

bookmarked.

Delayed reply (transparent proxies not updating on my isp… again)

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BTW TimeTraveller, these intermittent faults are the most interesting, helped me pass some time in the traffic hold-ups into and out of Heathrow today picking up my daughter and son-in-law.

One of those things that get under your skin and you just have to find out the cause!

I probably need to get out more!

25

Just a final stab in the dark before bed, and I’ll address this to Eddy for his thoughts if that’s ok

Failing battery on the mobo perhaps?

Use the system for a while, board gets warm and reboots ok.

Like I said, wild stab in the dark.

26

Neah, not the battery. If it is a temperature case, other parts like video, cpu and such will cause the error long before a battery causes one. Besides, for a battery to cause an error the temperature must be real high, even so high you would see components on the board melt before you can notice the battery failing.

I believe it is a conflict between drivers/applications.

27

The interest in this issue is unprecedented in my experience and I’ve been on the net since '91. Ya you can call me gramps. Anyway, thanks for the thought about the M/B drivers. The system seems to work perfectly EXCEPT for the shutdown/restart hang. It IS related to AVAST but it seems to be in relation to something else since when AVAST only is loaded at startup, there is no problem.

I rant he SFC earlier as Eddy suggested and it came up with one hit for setupx.exe in Windows\system which I will save in another spot, then replace from the CD to see if it makes any difference.

Thanks for all the interest and suggestions

28

TimeTraveller,

Did you try to un-install Avast and then reinstall it? Perhaps that may help… (it did for me on one Win 98 system, but that system hung on shutdown, not restart). I also found (for whatever reason) that my system ran more stable when Avast was set for XML rather than ODBC format (for VRDB)… see 3rd panel down in:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=1647;start=0

(i.e. you tweak the avast4.ini file located in the Avast data directory)

Also, if you were running Avast’s VRDB in ODBC format, then you may likely need to update the MS Jet files and the MS MDAC files, or else Avast won’t work properly–or, easier yet, just circumvent that problem by using the XML format–as I did.

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The latest MDAC can be found HERE

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TimeTraveller, the interest (in this forum) is the norm, and the help is offered for free. Outstanding is the only word that decribes it imo.

Did you do a search for setupx.exe on the net? It doesn’t seem to be a default installation file for 98se, though I stand to be corrected.

It does (however) throw this into the mix

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.semisoft.59904.html

31

inthewildteam may be correct. :frowning:

Check this google search at the link below:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=setupx.exe&btnG=Google+Search

32

Well if it is something like W32.Semisoft.59904, shouldn’t Avast have detected and cleaned it? (unless he didn’t scan the hard drive yet–or the virus is now deleted, but the damage is done)?

33

Many thanks to all who helped me out. I disabled TeaTimer from Spybot SD and that cured the problem with the computer hanging on a warm reboot on the shutdown side only, not on the startup side. Checked all the other suggestions people gave but the only thing that worked in the end was removing TeaTimer.

34

TimeTraveller - I also run W98SE, avast, and Spybot with TeaTimer… I have no problem with TeaTimer. :slight_smile:

Though turning off TeaTimer helped you somewhat, I don’t believe that is truely the problem. Perhaps for some reason you are running out of resources and turning off TeaTimer freed up enough resources for a proper shutdown. Maybe you could try TeaTimer again but stop some other process (or program) to see if you still get a proper shutdown.

But, I still think setupx.exe is where your problem is. Maybe that is where your resources are being lost. Read the below link and look for the indicated “running processes” on your computer.

http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/e/evil_x_2_0.asp

Starfighter - maybe he has not done a scan yet. I don’t remember reading that he has ???

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I’m not blaming agains PestPatrol, but take care, a lot of false positives :cry:

36

Setupx was setupx.dll, not setupx.exe as mentioned in the link “inthewildteam” gave. I took 2 actions…renamed setupx.dll to setupx.dl_ to and rebooted, AND restored original setupx.dll from CD. Neither option had any effect. Also I scanned with Avast ;D which should have detected an infection. Virus infection extremely improbable as it was as clean install on a private network behind firewall.
In any case, it’s out of my hands now since the friend I set up the computer for has taken it home now.
Again, many thanks for all who contributed their thoughts