Windows 7 Starter shelf life?

Hello,

This is my first time posting here. I have been having problems with my netbook (bought July 2010) using Windows 7 Starter for several months. This is my first non desktop and I've never experienced "crashing" problems before. It started when I chose to download "all" images from an email on gmail. The email was from a friend so there should not have been an issue. Immediately I had major problems with repeated crashing, realtek errors, and general slowness in how the computer is running. This is an almost daily thing, although sometimes it will happen 10x a day and sometimes once. Sometimes I can fiddle with it and get back on right away, sometimes, not for a day. Yesterday I started to wonder if the Starter version had a self life? Like maybe its called Starter for a reason, and it just doesn't last that long, forcing you to buy the premium edition?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thank you
Kim

leo811sf said:

Hello,

It started when I chose to download "all" images from an email on gmail. The email was from a friend so there should not have been an issue.

Click to expand...

The keywords being 'should not have'.

Immediately I had major problems with repeated crashing, realtek errors, and general slowness in how the computer is running. This is an almost daily thing, although sometimes it will happen 10x a day and sometimes once. Sometimes I can fiddle with it and get back on right away, sometimes, not for a day.

Click to expand...

What sort of fiddling?

Since these issues started after downloading from gmail, it would be advisable to do a virus scan as well as scan with Mbam.

Yesterday I started to wonder if the Starter version had a self life? Like maybe its called Starter for a reason, and it just doesn't last that long, forcing you to buy the premium edition?

Click to expand...

No, one of the limitations of the Starter version is not a shelf life

@smarteyeball- Thank you for your reply and suggestions. I have run the anti-virus everyday, sometimes more when it was crashing every few minutes. I will try the malware thing. Even though there is a ton of memory, I do not keep much on here and have since this problem removed other applications that I had added when I first got this computer. I also changed from Firefox to Google Chrome as I think the amount of memory that Firefox was using was a problem? ... Can you give me some insight why I get the Realtek error? Is there a relation to malware?

Thank you
Kim

I doubt firefox's memory usage is the problem.

As for the realtek errors - do you have Windows Update set to Automatic? or did you download a newer version of the drivers yourself? If so, it's possible that a newer driver version is not playing nice.

Malware (if that's what the problem is and depending on what it is) can have an impact on many things that aren't always apparent. The errors could simply be a by-product of something else being disabled ie a system service.

If it's not malware (or new driver) related it's hard to determine at this point.

When you say 'crashing', is Windows Bluescreening (BSOD), Hard freezing requiring a forced 'hard reset' (manual power button shutdown/restart) or is it just application crashes?

If it's bluesceening, there should be some crashdumps you can post in the Crashes and Debugging section. If so, follow these instructions on how to get all the info required for others to look at.

Alternatively, a 3rd party app like a music player, or a codec pack could be causing a conflict with the realtek drivers. Even updated video drivers that include their own HD audio drivers could cause a conflict as well.

If mbam comes up clean, you could always check for corrupt system files using the SFC/ Scannow command.

*

Type cmd in the search bar, it will show an icon with cmd - right click on this and select 'Run as Administrator'

At the cmd prompt type SFC /Scannow

If any system files are corrupt, it will attempt to fix them.


Also, if you have a restore point that pre-dates the problems, you can use this to 'roll back' your system to the time before the troubles started. *NB this is not a guarantee it will fix everything, depending on what the underlying issue is.

Yes, the update is automatic. Does that take care of all the driver updates? Including that Realtek?

"Crashing" at first it was just freeing up, but now when it crashes, yes it blue screens and says its dumping. Then it either restarts regular or gives me the screen to choose "start normally" OR "start repair". I rarely do a hard reset and when I do I get the Realtek error. What I have been doing to recover (and this took months of playing around to discover) is when I get that error, I will do control, F2 and then put the settings back to default and then exit and it starts up fine. ... I will try to do the blue screen thing next time.

I don't have any music players on here. I had itunes for my ipod but uninstalled it after this started happening.

Never heard of SFC/Scannow, will check that out if needed.

I do know the date this happened. So I could use the prior days to restore, if it doesn't fix itself. At one point it had seemed to and I didn't have a single issue for a couple weeks.

Ok, will chk the malware thing soon. Its been working good for now, but this is all been great info! Much appreciated!

iirc, realtek drivers are offered.

If the realtek issue has been going on for months, unfortunately it's highly unlikely you'd have a restore point that dates that far back. (aside from manually created restore points, Windows continually creates new ones and culls the old ones over time)

It sounds like the realtek issue is completely separate to the 'newer' problems. iTunes includes Quicktime, which is a music player so if the errors started right after using iTunes, there's a fair chance iTunes may have changed something.

If you could post you're netbooks exact model, I can find a the right link for the latest realtek drivers. Hopefully an un-install/re-install will reset that particular issue.

As for the other.. :huh: at this stage.