Avast crashes Win XP SP2.....

General Topics
1

Hi,

I hope somebody can help me here. Whenever I run Avast 4.7 in full scan mode it crashes the PC to a blue page which halts the PC and syas something about begining physical dump of memory.

I am running win XP home, Sp2 and up-to-date updates. Ram is 1GB, graphics is an ATI radeon 9250 with 256MB.

This is a repeatable problem, even after turning the PC off for several hours.

Thanks if you can help.

Andrew

2

What is the information on the BSOD, stop error code, etc. there may be some useful info you can google ?

A full scan could be putting quite a load on your system and could possibly lead to CPU overheating if you don’t have adequate cooling or fans clogged up with dust, or it is a high outside temperature, etc. The load could also show any weakness in your RAM, possibly a bad stick if you have more than one.

Can you tell us a little about your system, CPU, RAM (1 or 2 sticks), HDD and Data size, plus what scan was it (thorough, with archives, etc.) ?

3

How exactly does it freeze? Does it happen always approximatelly at the same place/folder of the scan?
Additionally, you can go to the program settings and turn on the creation of the report file (with “OK files” to be included as well in the report). This way, you can find out where the scan really stopped (it’s going to be close to the end of the report). The report file created (if you turned it on in program settings) will be (default location) at \Data\Report\Simple User Interface.txt

4

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated!

I will run it with the OK files log enabled later on today. For now, here are the important bits from the BSOD…

MACHINE_FAULT_CHECK

Stop: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x805461F0, 0xB2000010, 0x00010C0F)

Begining dump of physical memory

Does this help?

5

I did a google search on part of the stop error and that returned many hits, …Stop%3A+0x0000009C+%280x00000004%2C+0x805461F0. This is a couple of them, http://www.castlecops.com/posts182150-0.html or http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/482677. Microsoft info on Machine_Check_Exception, Stop: 0x0000009C http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329284/en-us

Some seem to seem it is a hardware error others think it is an interrupt problem.

6

Thank you David,

I copied it down wrong, it was really MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION.

Funny thing is it only happens when running Avast! - IT runs everything else, web ,flight simulator,email, avg, etc with no problem. Also, I went from McAfee to this and McA didn’t have any problem either.?!?

I’ll have a look at those links and see if there is anything that will help.

7

Computers really test us, can’t live with them can’t live without them.

McAfee has an uninstall tool that you could run to ensure any possible remnants are removed.
http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/VSCleanupTool.exe

It would be worth trying this if there are any remnants virtual driver on a registry legacy key I don’t know if this might cause a conflict which could result in this. It certainly shouldn’t hurt.

Welcome to the forums.

8

OK, a little more on this…

Yes I used the mcafee uninstaller.

I found 2 copies of the graphics card in ‘my computer’ ‘properties’ hardware’. I have deleted one now.

I found 2 copes of avast (one on the C: and one on the D: drive) - I uninstalled both of them and then deleted the folders too.

I reinstalled Avast! and updated to the latest version.

I still have the problem and it only happens when I run avast. No problems with anything else at all.

Any suggestions? (I cannot swap out any hardware components on this system).

9

Was this on a dual boot system, the reason for the C, D installations ?

With two installations of avast I don’t know if what you did would be sufficient, I would have suggested uninstall both, reboot, run the uninstall utility to ensure registry entries, etc. definitely gone, reboot and reinstall.

You may have to run the utility twice giving the location of the one on C: and then D:

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD so you can find it later.

Other than that I don’t really know what else to suggest (I’m just an avast user like yourself), but I doubt there should be a requirement to swap any components, unless one or more of the search links would suggest that. But, as you say you are unable to do that anyway.

10

Done that, but it is still the same. Now I am stumped!

Can you suggest another free AV program that I can try that is pretty good?

Thanks

11

Sorry I’m stumped too, since I have been using avast for a little over three years, I really can’t make any kind of recommendation.

Many of the free AVs are crippled in some way no resident protection, etc. to nudge you in the direction of the paid for option. I left AVG at that time and have seen nothing that would make me consider going back, but of course avast has worked very well for me for over three years.

12

Thanks for trying to help me. I do appreciate it!

Funny thing is that I can run all the following without any problem…

SuperAntiSpyware
Spybot
AVG anti root kit
AVG Anti-Spyware

They all finish with no problem. This is really annoying me now!

13

It is most certainly weird, I haven’t come across something like this (in over 3 years on the forums) that hasn’t been resolved by what has been suggested if it was ‘only’ an issue with avast.

A forum search for Machine_Check_Exception only reveals one hit, in this very topic, the same is true of a forum search for 0x0000009C, one hit in this topic.

I don’t know how deeply you have read the links I gave or replicated the google search, but there was one person who even formatted and reinstalled windows and it still didn’t go away, weird.

The MS link is pretty specific about the “MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION” although the bracketed numbers vary from yours, the stop error 0x0000009C is the important bit, so I don’t know how you can check out the possible hardware issues if you can’t access your system.

[b]CAUSE[/b] This behavior occurs because your computer processor detected and reported an unrecoverable hardware error to Windows XP. To do this, the processor used the Machine Check Exception (MCE) feature of Pentium processors or the Machine Check Architecture (MCA) feature of some Pentium Pro processors. The following factors may cause this error message: • System bus errors • Memory errors that may include parity or Error Correction Code (ECC) problems • Cache errors in the processor or hardware • Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLB) errors in the processor • Other CPU-vendor specific detected hardware problems • Vendor-specific detected hardware problems
A machine check exception occurs when Windows XP and your hardware platform cannot recover from a hardware error so that the system can continue to run successfully and reliably. More specific diagnosis of machine check exceptions is difficult, and there is no general solution. Contact your hardware manufacturer or a computer hardware technician for help with troubleshooting this issue.

Machine check exceptions are frequently caused by one of the following conditions:
• You are running the processor or mainboard beyond its specifications. For example, you are overclocking the processor or bus. We recommend that you run your hardware at the manufacturer-rated speeds.
• Noisy power, overstressed power strips, outmatched power supplies and failing power supplies can destabilize your computer. Make sure that you have a stable, reliable power supply to your computer.
• Extreme thermal conditions caused by the failure of cooling devices such as fans may damage your computer. Make sure that your cooling devices are all working.
• You have damaged memory or memory that is not the correct type for your computer. If you recently changed the memory configuration, revert to the previous configuration to determine what is wrong. Make sure that you are using the correct memory for your computer.

14

None off these programs are as stressful on your system since they don’t check
as many files as your anti virus program.

You could try using one of the on-line AV programs and see if they are able to do a complete scan of
your system without any hardware failures.

This sounds more like a heat related problem most likely cause by the full scan.

My guess is that it wouldn’t matter which AV program you used for the full scan because at some point
you would run into the same problem.

15

Bob, Had no problems at all with running thorough scans with Mcafee. So that’s not it. I cleaned out the PC and there was hardly any dust in there at all. The PC is often on for over a week at a time with no side effects.

David (and Bob)

This morning I thought I had cracked it. I disabled system restore and put the virtual memory to ‘windows controlled’. It ran the scan for about 3 hours before crashing. I removed on of the memory sticks and tried again, this time it crashed after about 2 hours. Yesterday it only went for about half an hour so maybe getting closer.

I removed the swap file and defragged the PC to create a new swap file just in case this was corrupted. Still won’t complete a scan.

I have disconnected the USB card reader as these sometimes cause problems, still no change.

I will try an online scan later on today and see if that works… I will let you know!

16

Thanks for the update.