i've been having trouble with my computer restarting randomly ever since i first built it, but recently its begun to give me error messages that say: "windows has recovered from a serious error". it said that my motherboard may not accept my processor, and i thought that this may have been the case since my processor doesn't support ht and my mobo does. i read in another post about the windows/run thing that would give me the diagnostic that it gave me in the error messages. i'll try to make it restart and then record the info.

Do you think this could be Malware? i had that same error message "windows has recovered from a serious error" later i found i had a virus.

This sounds to me like either a RAM problem or a CPU problem. Are you sure that the RAM is compatible with the motherboard? It may also be that something is set incorretly in BIOS.

Have you installed the motherboard/chipset drivers for your motherboard? This also may be a compatibility problem between your CPU and motherboard.

I'd suggest that you run this free program to get a system information report and post the results in your next post.

http://www.gtopala.com/index.html

If there were a compatibility problem between the board and the CPU the computer wouldn't make it into Windows for any length of time.

Good point Gary335! I was speculating that there might be a situation in which this occurred - but have no experience with it.

here's what the "serious error recovery" thing said.
F:\DOCUME~1\PRESTO~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERaea8.dir00\Mini090606-01.dmp
F:\DOCUME~1\PRESTO~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERaea8.dir00\sysdata.xml

that doesn't point out too much to me, but i don't know much about this kind of stuff.
i recall in another post someone giving a windows/run command that would give me the info i needed. does anyone know what that might be? i run spy sweeper every week or so, so i don't think that a virus is the problem.

One malware ap is usually not sufficient for malware protection.

You really need a layered approach because each anti-malware program may find malware that the others will not.

Anti-malware freeware
The following freeware aps will detect and remove spyware/malware from your computer and in addition to your resident anti-virus program you should have several (if not all) of these installed (and used frequently - each may detect things that the others may not -always update them before you run them)
Set them to update automatically if applicable.
Run them from safe mode when applicable

(You can run as many of these as you wish. Generally there is no conflict between these and you should always run several since each may find malware that the others may not find)

Ad-Aware SE Personal - freeware
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Adawa...nal/965718306/1


Spybot S&D:
Update – Aug 2006 - Spybot by default now ignores certain products such as New.Net and Sidestep for no good reason. New.Net compromises the WinSock stack by routing all your DNS queries through the NewDotNet.DLL. To enable detection go to "Settings", "Ignore products", "All products" Tab, right click on "Product", left-click on "Deselect all".

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
Be sure to enable “Teatimer” which gives you realtime protection against malware invasion.

Microsoft Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/s...re/default.mspx
This also provides realtime protection.

Ewido Antispyware Free
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/20/lng/us/tpl/v5

SpywareBlaster:
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (Win XP and Win 2000):
http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx

A² - Free from http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4281.html . Run it, click Search for Updates, then click Scan.

An occasional Web based scan will add to your protection and may be used regardless of whatever else you are using:

Windows Live Onecare Free Scan
It will say "Get a free PC safety scan"
http://safety.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm
Make sure you click "Full Service Scan" in the middle of the page and
not the "Try It Now Free" on the right side.

Allow it to download an Active X component.
Choose "Complete Scan" in the window that opens
Click "Next"
Do not click on anything else that offers you a free trial or to sign up if you live in the US.

Allow it to scan - it may take quite, maybe two hours or so depending on how big your hard drive is and how fragmented your registry and drive are.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus Web Scanner
http://www.kaspersky.com/service?chapter=161739400#betatest
and
File scanner and virus scanner
http://www.kaspersky.com/scanforvirus


Panda Activescan
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/co...n_principal.htm
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm

Trend Micro antivirus and malware scan:
http://housecall-beta.trendmicro.com/en/st...orp.asp?id=scan

Etrust Anti-virus web scanner
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx.

Avast Online scan
http://onlinescan.avast.com/

F Secure online scan
http://support.f-secure.com/ols/start.html

Ewido Online scan
http://www.ewido.net/en/onlinescan/


Trojan scans –
Sygate Trojanscan
http://scan.sygatetech.com/pretrojanscan.html

Windows Security Trojanscan
http://windowsecurity.com/trojanscan
See instructions for it here:
http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/trojanscan.asp

Parasite scan from Aumha:
http://www.aumha.org/a/noads.php
or here:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/noads2.htm

The new free Windows Onecare scan is very complete and does much more than a malware scan.
I suggest you run it asap.

You must use Internet Explorer for this:

Go to Windows Live Onecare Free Scan
It will say "Get a free PC safety scan"
http://safety.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

Make sure you click "Full Service Scan" in the middle of the page and
not the "Try It Now Free" on the right side.

Allow it to download an Active X component.
Choose "Complete Scan" in the window that opens
Click "Next"
Do not click on anything else that offers you a free trial or to sign up if you live in the US.

Allow it to scan - it may take quite, maybe two hours or so depending on how big your hard drive is and how fragmented your registry and drive are.

You can look at your Event Viewer to see if the error was recorded there. Here's a how-to: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic40108.html

Also, you can search your hard drive for .dmp or .mdmp files. If you find any, use this link to do an analysis and post the results here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35246

If you don't find any .dmp or .mdmp files - the next time it crashes, locate those files before getting rid of the dialog (they're generally deleted after you send the report).

F:\DOCUME~1\PRESTO~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERaea8.dir00\Mini090606-01.dmp
is a dmp file.