Serious computer crash

I’m using Avast Free Antivirus 6. After i try to open something from the 300GB hard drive, the computer crashes. Sometimes it crashes when the computer doesn’t do anything. After i turn off a protection, pl. Behaviour prot. and turn if on again, the computer doesn’t crash anymore until the next restart.

Can someone help?

Computer parameters:

Intel Celeron 2,4 GHz
2 GB RAM
60 GB and 300 GB hard drive
Windows xp Home SP2
Avast Free Antivirus 6.0.1091

First thing to do: update your XP to SP3…!
asyn

If by “crashes” you mean bluescreens - do you have any recent minidump files (with timestamps corresponding to the crashes) in C:\Windows\Minidump folder?

No blue screen, just crash. I can move the mouse arrow, but can’t do anythingelse.

The another problem is that when Avast finds a virus, the computer slows down for about 30 secons.

Maybe you can manual dump: when the machine is in stalled state, hold down the rightmost CTRL key, and press the SCROLL LOCK key twice. This will cause a machine to ‘blue-screen’ and dump of memory will start.
More info: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=71

To generate full dump instead of only kernel (or small dump), see http://www.msfn.org/board/creating-memory-dumps-t130005.html.

Guys, first we should be sure that this is a legit XP, else many weird things can happen. :wink:
asyn

Genuine xp

Good. :slight_smile:
So update to SP3.

Already tried SP3 on another computer. After the install, can’t connect to the internet anymore!

Some computer works fine with SP3 but some not

PC professionals recommand not to install SP3, only for a nwely installed system.

PC professionals like vulnerable computers. They get paid to remove malware. ;D

An important thing to remember is that SP2 is no longer supported by MS.
If you have SP3 installed, support will continue 'til sometime in 2014.
Many security vulnerabilities have had patches issued since SP3 was released. It is likely you would have missed some of those, using SP2.

Update your computer to SP3. Restart when prompted. Let it take the time it needs. A second reboot might be advisable. Then, go to Windows updates. You might be surprised.

I’ve installed SP3, the computer (and the internet) works, but the Avast still crashes!

What can i do?

Try a clean install.

  1. Follow instructions here: http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility
  2. Reinstall avast. http://files.avast.com/iavs5x/setup_av_free.exe

I’ve reinstalled, but the problem is the same.

When i run a full system scan, some files can’t be scanned (Compression bomb). What is the compression bomb?

  1. What crashes and when and how…??
  2. You can ignore this.

When i’m trying to read from the 300 GB hard drive, the computer immediately crashes.

As you don’t get a BSOD.
How does it crash…? What happens…?
You can run free Mbam, to check if the system is clean. (Update it after install…!!!)
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Crashes like what the OP is saying happened on my windows xp computer when i had google chrome installed. but it stopped after google chrome got removed. So basically the Crashes on your computer Could be happening from a program that you have installed.

CoolMario, it is possible there is a program confliction, however that doesn’t address the cause of it. The majority of users can run Avast and Chrome, or any other legitimate program.

I’m suspecting malware at this point.
I think an OTL log might be called for. But first, details about the system crash would be useful. As Asyn has asked. Please state “how” it crashes.