Windows XP randomly becomes unresponsive

So I'm working on a friend's netbook, an Acer Aspire One with XP SP3. Dunno the exact model, but it's N270 based with 1GB of RAM. It does have a hard drive, not a SSD.

Basically, a couple of minutes after bootup (varies a bit each time), the system becomes almost totally unresponsive. No hard drive activity, no bluescreen, nothing. CTRL+ALT+DEL does nothing....only way I've found to get out of it is a hard reset.

As far as I can tell, it runs just fine in safe mode, but I'm quite unfamiliar with XP and have no idea how to find out why, or where to start.

Is there any sort of log I could post that'd help?



edit: As far as I know she's run a handful of different malware scanners, including sophos to check for rootkits, with no results.

Since you can boot into Safe Mode. Use msconfig to see what programs are being run at startup and eliminate any that aren't essential. Not sure what sophos is, have you tried running Malwarebytes' Ant-Malware?

Sophos is a software developer that has several free anti-malware tools. The particular one used was their anti rootkit tool

I believe malwarebytes has already been run, as well as an AVG scan and some sort of McAfee thing....looks like that free scanner they bundle with programs for advertisement.

I've already disabled everything I could find that wasn't essential for windows to boot, with no luck. She's just now given the ok to wipe it and reinstall if need be...everything's backed up. Thinking this might be the better option...?

XP can become unresponsive for many reasons and not all of them are always viruses lol.If you are completely sure that entire HDD is 100% virus free,do the following:

It can be that Windows OS registry hive is messed up so damn much that system barely works.So download Eusing Free Registry cleaner,install it and configure all the options properly.By that I mean to go to EDIT->OPTIONS and be sure that all check boxes are checked.Save options,close the program and reopen it again and then start the scan by clicking SCAN REGISTRY ISSUE.Scan might take some time.After it is done,be sure that all items are checked and then click REPAIR REGISTRY ISSUE.After the repair is done,you will get a message.Just click CLOSE and then close the program and restart the computer.

Is the problem fixed?

If not,it can be that a part of Windows OS data is damaged or unreadable.So in this case the best thing you should do is the following:

Go into SAFE MODE WITH COMMAND PROMPT and there type the following command:

CHKDSK C: /f /r

(Considering that Windows OS is installed on "C:" drive.If not,replace "C:" with the drive letter Windows OS is installed to).

Now click ENTER.You will probably be asked do you want to start disk check the next time system starts since it cannot do it immediately because you are IN Windows OS and XP OS needs exclusive access to some data on the HDD.So write letter "y" and press ENTER and then write the following command to restart the computer:

Shutdown.exe -r -t 0

When computer restarts,disk check process will start automatically and it can take a very long time so let it finish.
When the process is finished,the computer is restarted automatically.
Now try to use computer again and see if it works better.

You may also want to try to defragment the drive on which Windows XP OS is installed to.


If none of this did not help,then repair your XP OS using XP disk.By REPAIR I mean really REPAIR and NOT REINSTALL.


Report back with the results.




Cheers!