Spybot hangs after loading

D

Dinoguy1000

New member
After the loading bar of Spybot fills out, it hangs and the main program window does not appear, regardless of how long it runs. This problem persists even after attempting to reinstall, although as I recall, it only occurs after installing the latest version of TeaTimer (my memory is a bit hazy, since it has been some months since I attempted to reinstall and update again).
 
I just tried running it in safe mode, and observed the same behavior. Should I reinstall Spybot again and more carefully keep track of which update seems to cause this behavior?
 
Actually, I tried the methods suggested in that post before posting here. I'm personally doubtful it's some type of badware preventing Spybot from running, because the loading bar does come up, but then, badware acts awfully weird sometimes... :lip:

I'll try reinstalling and see if I can identify the exact problematic update when I get home, then.
 
Hmm... Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to this yesterday, but I *should* be able to do it by the end of the week (famous last words =P ).
 
All right, I tried reinstalling 1.6.2, but got the same hang, so I uninstalled it and went back to 1.6.0 (a version that had previously worked for me), but it stalled on me again. Given that, I'm not sure if it would be worth trying even older versions or not.
 
I guess Dinoguy1000 tried the steps on the sticky before posting(post 5),Sandra,except posting in malware removal. :)
 
Indeed. I'm no newb to spyware removal, though I'm definitely not an expert (I'm also quite familiar with internet forums, so I know to look for do-me-first threads before posting). I didn't go to malware removal because I doubt the issue is being caused by malware (but, as I said earlier, malware acts just plain wierd sometimes, so...). =)

Zenobia said:
What operating system do you have?
Click to expand...

Windows XP SP2 (Pro, I believe). I can get you the computer specs when I get home (but, off the top of my head, it has 96 MB RAM and ~11GB hard drive (it started out as a 98 computer)).
 
Dinoguy1000 said:
Windows XP SP2 (Pro, I believe). I can get you the computer specs when I get home (but, off the top of my head, it has 96 MB RAM and ~11GB hard drive (it started out as a 98 computer)).
Click to expand...

If that's true the answer is simple, you're out of RAM.

I can't imagine Windows XP with that little RAM being able to run more than notepad in this day and age.

Bitman
 
bitman said:
If that's true the answer is simple, you're out of RAM.

I can't imagine Windows XP with that little RAM being able to run more than notepad in this day and age.

Bitman
Click to expand...

Actually, you'd be surprised what an empty startup folder and a little patience can get you... That being said, it is very annoying constantly having to wait for programs that shouldn't take a tenth as long as they do to start up. As for Spybot, 1.6.2 actually was working on my computer until I tried installing one of the updates, so I doubt it's because I'm out of RAM or anything.
 
I personally run Spybot S&D on an older PII-400 system, but it does have 768MB of RAM and a 20GB HDD.

Even if you could get it to run on your system, I'd guess it would take hours to run a scan, since mine takes over an hour and a half. Since it's unlikely you could run any reasonable real-time protection with this little RAM and still open a browser, it doesn't seem worth the trouble to me unless you have at least about 256MB and a PIII.

I plan to finally retire this old PC later this year when I buy a new media PC with Windows 7. Playing with an old PC like these seems like fun until you realize all you're really doing is managing (and waiting for) the PC and not actually getting anything done with it. I really only use it for testing of the old Windows 2000 OS anyway and that will be officially unsupported by mid-2010.

Bitman
 
As I recall, a full scan typically takes ~2 hours. But yes, I've definitely noticed that I do far more managing than anything else on this computer (and you're right, I don't run any type of real-time protection on it).

I would have retired this computer ages ago if I had the money to buy a replacement. =/
 
What's the make and model or the motherboard type if it's a noname?

Do you know if it's maxed out for RAM? Though it probably won't speed up much it at least wouldn't be RAM starved and start thrashing the disk for memory, which is most likely what is occuring when you attempt to start Spybot S&D or anything else requiring large amounts of memory.

Bitman
 
It's a Compaq Presario (I have a feeling that's only the make, though, and looking up the model number would require me to shut the computer off and probably completely disconnect it because of where it's at). I thought I could pull the motherboard info from the Device Manager, but apparently I'm not looking in the right place. =/

As a correction to my earlier statement (96 MB RAM), this computer actually only has 92 MB RAM (and, now that I look, an AMD-K6 3D processor @ 450 MHz).
 
The model number will be crucial, since each model can use different motherboards and in fact there are even Compaq Presario desktop and notebook models available with that processor, which you also never specified, though I'm betting it's a desktop.

The Presario desktop models of that era appear to have shipped with 96MB RAM, so the 4MB missing is probably reserved for the video memory.

They also indicate that the 3 DIMM slots are upgradable to 384MB (SyncDRAM DIMM required). This might be proprietary memory, but we'll know better when you provide the model number.

Looking up the RAM for the desktop models I found using that processor shows modules up to 64MB each available from one vendor, which would provide 192MB total, less the 4 to 8MB used by the video. This might barely be enough to operate, though it would be better if you could find a couple 128MB modules somewhere.

Bitman
 
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