>From time to time there have been some comments by several people in the forum about problems encountered with certain anti-virus software.
As I remember, most of these comments were usually made as a side issue to other discussions, such as system problems or memory problems or Protel crashes, so it might not be too easy to get any consensus out of the PEDA archive unless one did several very specific searches, and then culled thru all of the results for the info on anti-virus issues. So for that reason, and also the reason that I just had some major problems which may be attributable to my anti-virus software, I will broach the issue once again, and start by relating the problem I had attempting to upgrade (expand) the memory in my system. While I apologize in advance for the length of this post, I am taking the time to write it and post it to the forum in the hope that it will prevent someone else from going thru the same problems that I had to go thru, and additionally, find out if there are other specific problems that others out there may have had relating to anti-virus software, and how it relates to their systems, and also to Protel. I am running Protel 99 SE and DXP on Windows 2000 Pro, on an IBM Net Vista 6648, which is a Pentium 3 running at 866 MHz., and which originally had 128 MB of PC133 DIMM memory installed. I should also note that I also have an external CD ROM which is connected to the Printer Port. After the recent problems that I had with numerous crashes in Protel 99 SE while doing a large board with several large polygon planes in it, several people in this forum suggested that I needed more memory. Well, I finally broke down and went to "Fry's", our local electronics superstore, and found out that they were having a sale on 256 MB PC133 DIMM memory at $19.95 a stick, so I decided to by 2. Since I have already tried to expand my memory on this system once in the past by plugging an additional 128 MB PC133 DIMM stick into the second slot on the motherboard, only to have it not work, I asked the salesman whether there was something special about the IBM machines that I needed to be concerned about, and he told me that they were "very picky", and that the cheap stuff might not work. Typical Salesman. Anyway, I bought 2 sticks of the "better" stuff for $32.95 each, which he assured me would work. Get home, plug in the new memory, and fire up the system, and the BIOS complains because of the amount of memory, but that is a one time automatic adjustment, and we are on our way again, and we reboot. Things go well thru the diagnostics and the boot process until Windows 2000 takes over and starts its boot thing, and then it stops cold with the "Blue Screen of Death", saying "STOP = 0x00000050" and "PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGED AREA". It went on to say that I should boot in "safe mode" and remove any defective hardware or recent changes, etc., etc., etc.. I tried to boot in "Safe Mode", and was met with the same "Blue Screen". Finally I had to reinstall the original 128 MB stick to get the machine back up and running. It took a few days, but I went back to "Fry's" to return the memory, and talk to their sales people again, who double checked their "list" and threw up their hands in puzzlement when confronted with the "Blue Screen" message. So off to their Technical Support area, where they do all of the installs and upgrades, figuring that they may know a little more than the sales people. Was it a problem with IBM? Was it a problem with Windows 2000? Well, even their Manager was miffed by the problem, but looked at a different "list", and said that the IBM "might" need "CL2" (Cache Latency 2) type memory, and proceeded to sell me 2 sticks of the "CL2" 256 MB PC133 DIMMs, at a slightly higher $38.99 each (notice a trend here?). Thinking that we had the answer, I plugged in the "CL2" stuff, and the same thing happened. Urrrrrrgh! Well, I diddled around with the BIOS a bit, and tried a few other things, all to no avail, but I did notice that the BIOS seemed to be OK with the memory, even with the "long version" of the start up "diagnostics", and it appeared that everything was OK until things got turned over to Windows 2000 where everything would go south. I am aware that the BIOS on most machines does not do a comprehensive memory test, but just a couple of quick fills of ones and zeroes and compares, and that because of such, the memory really could still be bad even though the BIOS said it was OK. I talked to a lot of different people about the problem, and no one seemed to have any answers as to what the problem could be. With my 15 day guarantee on the new memory sticks close to running out, I finally made a diagnostic diskette from a download from the IBM support site, for my machine. This way, I could install the new memory, and boot from the floppy diagnostics disk and run the memory tests on the new memory. Diagnostics worked fine, and even the extended "Full" test which took several hours, all stated that the 512 MB DIMM memory was OK, and yet the machine still stopped with the "Blue Screen of Death" once Windows 2000 tried to boot. I had wondered all along whether or not this may be a problem with something in Windows 2000, or possibly a problem with some specific software that I had installed, or possibly with the CD DOM drive installed on the Printer Port, which I thought might be somehow hardware specific, and I also wondered if something "software wise" was somehow being installed in a specific location relevant to the old 128 MB memory that was getting trashed with the new 512 MB memory (or even only 256 MB (I tried both ways)). The big question that I had, was whether or not reinstalling Windows 2000 from scratch, along with reinstalling everything else, might resolve the problem, or whether it would just be a gigantic waste of time and energy. Well, I went to the Microsoft site, and spent quite a bit of time wandering thru all of their different "support" and "troubleshooting" areas, all to no avail, since while I found numerous articles which dealt with the issue, virtually all of them pointed the finger at either a bad motherboard or faulty memory. My system worked perfectly with only the original 128 MB installed, and the BIOS and The IBM Diagnostics all said that the 512 MB of memory was good. I was about ready to give up, when I stumbled onto the following link on the Microsoft site . . . http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;183169 . . . which, in addition to saying that it could be hardware problems (motherboard, processor, memory etc.) it also stated that it could be "Anti-virus software that is running on your computer.", or drivers installed by something such as my external CD ROM. Anti-virus Software. OK. Well, I was running Norton Anti-Virus. This specific flavor of Norton Anti-Virus had actually come bundled with the IBM system, from IBM, so it was presumably compatible with my system. Well, I "uninstalled" the Norton Anti-Virus, and I also "uninstalled" and disconnected the CD ROM drive, all to no avail, the "Blue Screen" was becoming a permanent fixture and I was wondering if I would ever be able to upgrade the memory on this machine, which Protel so desperately seems to need. Well, I finally thru in the towel, and rebooted and hit "F11" to "restore" the original software, and answered "yes" to have it reformat the drive and erase everything. I was holding my breath, waiting for it to stop again, but it didn't, and it successfully reinstalled Windows 2000, with the 512 MB of memory, and I was additionally able to reinstall everything else, including the external CD ROM on the Printer Port, with it's software. Everything is now back up and running OK, with the exception of Norton Anti-Virus, which I have not yet reinstalled. It may well be that I can simply reinstall Norton, and there will be no problems at all, and everything will be OK. On the other hand, I may encounter the "Blue Screen of Death" once again, and Murphy's Law would require me to go thru the whole Windows 2000 reinstall just to fix the problem. My gut feeling is that Windows 2000 simply has a problem with the way it installs certain things and that once certain things like an anti-virus program or possibly my external CD ROM, is installed, you can't expand the memory without reinstalling Windows 2000. Period. I may be wrong, but it looks that way from here. As a side note, I am wondering just how well the "CL2" memory is running in my system, and whether I am gaining or loosing anything by using it in my system, as it appears now that it probably would have run on anything, even the original "cheap stuff" at $19.95 a stick. Anyway, the real question now is do I want to install anti-virus software on that machine, and if so, which anti-virus software should I install? I am inclined to say that even with the drawbacks posed by anti-virus software, that since the machine is hooked up to a "small network" of sorts (a D-Link DI-804 Router/Hub hooked to a DSL Modem), and I do occasionally "download" files to that machine from the Internet (although I do not receive email on that machine), that that machine does in fact probably need some kind of protection. With that, I will pose 3 questions to the forum. 1. Should I install an anti-virus program? 2. If so, which anti-virus software should I use? 3. Has anyone experienced any problems with any specific anti-virus software causing problems with Protel (99SE or DXP)? Thanks, JaMi Smith * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:proteledaforum@;techservinc.com * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:ForumAdministrator@;TechServInc.com * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/proteledaforum@;techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
