Compaq laptop Question

A friend of mine told me his Compaq laptop that is running XP Home edition recently has been acting up and I wanted to run it by you guys for any helpful info. Here is what happened:

The system told him it was going to shut down while he was working on the computer, and it did shut down.

When he booted it up he got a black screen with some info about trouble starting up and after a bout 20 sec. the system started up and worked ok

I asked him prior to this happening, did he install or download any application or program. He told me downloaded GRUNG or some thing like that . it's a program like real, itunes etc. The other thing is he went into Fast Defag program and was playing with the program and changed in the MEDIA section to change windows media to ITunes as the default.

He said it has only happened a couple of times, this dosen't happen every time.

I am thinking it's the new media program he installed, GRUNG. I thought about having him run from safe mode his anti-virus program just to be sure. If all is well with that, to uninstall thew new program.

Any thoughts???

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Comments

Plantwiz

Uninstall the program and see what happens.

Generally, you start with your most recent changes and work back.

sprkymrk

The event logs are the first place I look after an unexpected shutdown.

Plantwiz

sprkymrk wrote:

The event logs are the first place I look after an unexpected shutdown.

Ok, yes, check the event logs.....too many things that become routine and not specifically noted.

But I Do note the history of recent events in the 'interview' and might be checking the log while talking with the client.

sprkymrk

Plantwiz wrote:

sprkymrk wrote:

The event logs are the first place I look after an unexpected shutdown.

Ok, yes, check the event logs.....too many things that become routine and not specifically noted.

But I Do note the history of recent events in the 'interview' and might be checking the log while talking with the client.

Sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you, just adding to it for the OP. Sometimes I post in a hurry and it comes across terse, my apologies.

I completely agree with the "what did you change last" line of thought. It's been proven true time and time again in my experience. I actually meant that a quick check of the event logs will probably confirm what you suspected, usually something like "The system has rebooted from a buckeck...." and then a reference to the offending program will usually follow.

Plantwiz

No problem, I didn't think you were disagreeing, but after reading your comment....I realized that 'I' did fail to mention the event log and it is a place I do look. And as many people complain on the exams...what do you 'do' first...sometimes there are a few thigns being done at the same time and as time passes and experience gains the 'first' step is more of a combination of internal questioning and physical observation while digging through the logs.