The day my comp stopped listening to me...

[Mista K6]

So yah, this is a couple of problems that all of a sudden started plaguing me. Nothin changed at all, no new programs, downloads, nada, my comp just started doing this stuff.

1) Sometimes my D drive (the 160GB) bugs up when I try to open folders in it. This happens mostly when I open up my music folder (~350 songs, ~1.7GB) and the folder window will just freeze, I usually end up opening task manager to get my pointer back, x it out, the my taskbar vanishes, and then is reappears. When I try to open the folder again, everything works perfectly.

2) Microsoft Messenger all of a sudden starts running in the background for no reason whatsoever. I stopped it form doing so in all the options menus etc., and it still wont listen to me. I use it now and then to talk to people from other countries, but is there another program that'll work well and allow you to talk to people using MSN messenger w/o having all that running in the background crap? Cause I thought MS tried to stop people from using those programs with its recent upgrade :?: .

3) I can't search through google through my address bar anymore. This just happened one day. I thought something went wrong, so I went through the relax - righteousness guide again just to make sure (great guide btw). So, now I have to open up the search bar or go through google.com.

Well, thats all that I can think of right now, thx for any info/help, I really appreciate it. : peace2: Mista K6

P.S. Found one more thing: All of a sudden my speakers switch from 6.1 to 2.1, again, for no reason. All I have to do is go back into the creative speaker settings, but nevertheless, its annoying. Thx!

[The__tweaker]

You can use trillian it's ok, I'm not using it though since it's missing a few features I need in a instant messenger application.

About msn messenger, once ya set it to not load on startup then it doesn't. Now the messenger icon pops up in your taskbar when you sign in to ya msn hotmail and stays there till you sign out again but the application isn't running in the background other than that if you doesn't want it to.. :)

[Wiggo]

Have ya done complete updated virus and adware/malware scans? :?:

[Mista K6]

Thanks tweaker, I'll try trillian, I only need it to chat with people, thats it. And ya, thats the funny thing. I've stopped it from starting up in MSConfig, stopped it in the options menu, dont allow it to run in the background, etc, but it still does, hence the title of my thread :shrug: .

And yah Wiggo, thats the thing that annoys me, I'm big on system maintenence, every weekend I:

-Do a disk clean up and a defrag on both HDD's
-Do an Adaware scan (I check for new reference files too)
-Do a McAfee virus scan
-Look through RegCleaner for any unused keys

Still this keeps happening, so I have no clue. I think I might wipe my system restore points, maybe thats whats doing it. I recently had to go back to Jan 4th to recover a photo I accidentally deleted, maybe that big of a leap screwed upsomething when I undid the restoration. Ah well, I'll look through it. Thanks for the replies, : peace2: Mista K6

[maximus7001]

How long since last reformat? Would that happen to be msn messenger 6?

[sepherum2ya]

I have a program called "advanced XP Tweak" I use it to get rid of messenger. well atelast stop it from popping up.. And I use Registry Healer rather trhan Regcleaner.

[sepherum2ya]

I have also heard about some crazy sound/hdd issues on DELL machines... My fathers company is full Of Dells... but sometimes when you restart.. you might have sound.. might not..

[Mista K6]

Both the HDD's are installed by me, the original 40GB WD BB that came with it died in October :( . Well, I seem to have fixed the whole pause thing as I deleted my old copies of the Desert Combat .5 d/l and .6 patch, and just left the .7, which seemed to have solved alot of the pause. I also went through and cleaned house on the drive, and then switched the view of the songs from detailed to just list, now there are no pauses anywhere, so it seems its "fixed" :shrug: . My HDD scores in PCMark2002 are right where they were before (1400's), so I guess all is good. First format was last april, and this isnt even my system HDD, so it shouldnt need it yet. I think I'm just going to uninstall messenger. Just in case I do have to reinstall it, is there a place where I can get a setup launcher for it? Or can it be done through the XP CD? Thx a lot for all the replies, : peace2: Mista K6

[sepherum2ya]

my new hdd from wd.. when i ran pcmark 2002 on it.. It was like sitting there doing nothing.. on the first hdd.. test. And i could never figure out what to do to fix it. But it like killed my hdd score.