just installed Avast, pc freezes several times a day

system · 2006-10-11T00:51:46.000Z

My Compaq pc (Athlon 64 chip) was freezing all the time. I had to do a restore of winXP and hard drive re-format to get it to run again, which enabled me to re-start my 90 days free with Norton anti virus. The pc didn’t crash very often, and I thought my zip drive was the problem and since the re-store, I leave it unplugged most of the time.

the 90 days ran out, so I uninstalled Norton and installed the latest Avast version and now the PC freezes several times a day. I’m ready to go back to Norton if I can’t stop the freezing. Thanks for any help!!

Lisandro · 2006-10-11T01:30:42.000Z

AV uninstall or other antivirus uninstall for compatibility reasons: http://www.claymania.com/av-uninstall.html.
See: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=12169.0

A removal tool for such a number of NAV is SymNRT.

Remove NAV through Add/Remove programs from Control Panel. Boot.
Use Symantec removal tool following the three steps defined in the SymNRT tool info or here.
Boot.
Install avast! Boot.
See what you get.

Full SymNRT info:

Download and save these three files to the Windows desktop:
a) ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/MSIFIX.bat
b) ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/SymNRT.exe
c) ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/linked_files/tsgen/SYMMSICLEANUP.reg
Run the three files that you just downloaded
a) On the Windows desktop, double-click the MSIFIX icon.
Click Run.
A black window may appear very briefly.
b) On the Windows desktop, double-click the SymNRT icon.
Click Run.
Click Next.
Click I accept the License Agreement, and click Next.
Type the letters and numbers that you see in the white box, and then click Next.
Click Yes or OK at each prompt.
You may need to click more than once. Your computer may be restarted for you more than once.
You may be asked to repeat some steps after the computer restarts.
c) On the Windows desktop, double-click the SYMMSICLEANUP icon.
Click Run, and then click Yes.
Click OK.
Boot.

system · 2006-10-13T00:04:51.000Z

thanks for the prompt reply, ditto for my email to support!!

I googled for the norton tool and ran it. I had previously run the control panel uninstall when installing Avast. (Maybe when installing Avast you could warn us about the need to uninstall using the tool versus control panel. It might have saved me months of aggravation. I didn’t suspect the dueling viruses could be my problem.)

So far, the pc is running better - only one day later. If it still crashes frequently, I’ll go back and run the three programs in you post. When I ran the removal tool, my pc kept sending Microsoft error reports until I shut it down. Those did not continue after re-booting.
Thanks again for your prompt help!

Lisandro · 2006-10-13T01:48:48.000Z

Ski2daywork2morrow, how can we help you right now? Is there anything else we can help?

system · 2006-10-25T23:48:13.000Z

I downloaded and ran all three of the programs your reply had links to. The good news is the frequency of crashes is way down to what I consider “normal” for windows.

The bad news is that to start the pc, it takes two tries with the button. The first time, usually each morning, you can hear a fan run, and the little red lights near the button light, but it doesn’t get too far, nothing appears on the screen. You hold the button in for five seconds, power it down, wait a moment, press the button and it boots normally. This happens just about every day. This also happened prior to the restor a few months ago. I think it correlates strongly with switching to Avast and then the fixes.

The second problem is that I-tunes gives me a warning when I start it that “Itunes was not properly installed. If you wish to import or burn CDs, you need to re-install Itunes.” I reinstalled it after the first go around of removing the norton stuff, but I will won’t bother with that again until I hear back from you. I’m pretty sure a reinstall will solve that, I just really would like to get the boot/start ups to go more smoothly.

Avast support emailed my to repair Avast when I was done removing the Norton files. I did the first time, but haven’t done that since I ran the three programs in your post, maybe that would fix the startup problem. they said “Open Control Panel > Add / Remove Programs > Select avast! > Click Change / Remove > Select Repair from the menu > Click Ok” ???

thanks again for your help!!

system · 2006-10-26T04:53:21.000Z

ski2daywork2morrow post:5:

The second problem is that I-tunes gives me a warning when I start it that “Itunes was not properly installed. If you wish to import or burn CDs, you need to re-install Itunes.”

I’m not sure about the boot problem but try stopping all the avast! providers before re-installing
I-tunes.

Lisandro · 2006-10-26T19:41:00.000Z

ski2daywork2morrow post:5:

Avast support emailed my to repair Avast when I was done removing the Norton files. I did the first time, but haven’t done that since I ran the three programs in your post, maybe that would fix the startup problem. they said “Open Control Panel > Add / Remove Programs > Select avast! > Click Change / Remove > Select Repair from the menu > Click Ok” ???

It’s ok, it won’t harm your system if you try to repair avast installation…

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