OS X works fine, XP often freezes

SinfulDust

Registered
Greetings from Australia!

As the title says, I can boot into and do anything I like in OS X. Recently though when I boot into XP it freezes at various stages. Initially it was during the XP boot screen (logo + scrolling bar), once it got to the Welcome screen it would login and run just fine (playing games for 6-10 hours with no hiccups). Over the last few days it's taken to freezing during the Welcome screen, and now during regular use. There's no warning and no response aside from killing the machine from the power button.
On the other hand, OS X runs 100% fine with no issues whatsoever.

From this I guessed it was a software screwup in Windows, since the hardware appeared to run just fine. It couldn't have helped that I had a virus on my external HDD which spread to the Windows partition, but I was able to fix that successfully.

Steps attempted that I can remember:
*Ran chkdsk and fixboot using the recovery console (twice)
*Fixed the registry entries for config.sys etc
*Ran a memtest on both OS X and XP (no errors)
*Deleted Daemon Tools (it was preventing Safe Mode from booting properly)

I suspect the virus messed with the registry entries to the point that Daemon Tools (sptd.sys) and AVG were preventing Safe Mode from booting, but I have no idea why it allowed me into normal mode. I also have what I believe are fairly common issues with the fans while running in XP, and the computer does get uncommonly hot. I use the excellent Input Remapper to keep the fans running constantly.
So long and short, I don't have the tools to fully open the computer to clean out the fans (if they're dirty) and I can't format the partition without the OS X install disks.

When back in Ireland (where both me and laptop are originally from) there were no issues in either OS X or XP. As it stands, the Windows partition is the bigger half, and all of my games and music are there and as I said I can't format it.

The only thing that has worked (so far) is removing one of the sticks of RAM. I'm not holding my breath that it will continue to hold out though. Plus I can't understand how a bad stick of RAM would only affect XP, nor why memtest didn't pick up any errors.

It's a 15" MacBook Pro, 2x2GB (4GB) of DDR RAM. ~250GB HDD. OS X is largely clean, XP probably not so much but it was working excellently back home. No reported driver errors.

I can survive on one stick of RAM, but I'd much rather have two for the more intensive games. Are there any suggestions amongst the wise folks of these forums? Bear in mind I don't have a second laptop to play around with to test the "bad" RAM.

Cheers! And apologises for the length.

~SFD
 
1) Back up all your data (XP and OS-X)
2) Re-install windows, run all updates, re-install the virus protection, re-install your applications, re-install your data

If you cannot do (1), you will lose your data sooner or later. According to your explainations it sounds like it may be sonner than you expect.
 
Thanks for the suggestion but reinstalling Windows is not an option at the moment as I don't have the OS X installation disks to install the drivers needed to run XP properly. I could download them, but not until I can next get down to the netcafe (Australian ideas of unlimited broadband internet are woeful compared to what I'm used to!).
Although I'll get those disks and be sure to backup everything possible anyway (stupid external HD is in NTFS format though, so it will be a little bit of a pain, although I have little of use on the OS X partition). As I've learned from painful experience, there's never an unlikely time for your HDD to blow up on you.

I did manage to find a temporary (/permanent, hopefully) solution without formatting anything. It turns out the RAM was fine, as my computer happily froze up soon after even with one working RAM stick.
So I downloaded SMC Fan Control and noticed that in OS X the temperatures would never go beyond 60 degree Celsius. When the computer would freeze and I'd have to reboot into OS X SMC would report 80 degree plus before the fans kicked in to cool it down. The problem, I'm pretty sure, came from overheating causing the GPU to clam up which meant the computer itself was actually still working fine, but if you can't see anything change, it's useless.
So I believe it's a heating issue, and that the fan control offered by Input Remapper isn't good enough. I resetted OS X with SMC Fan Control running (which keeps the fans running full strength) and picked up Lubbo's Fan Control for BootCamp Windows. After setting it to run at full strength I've had no problems over the last few days. Just have to make sure to turn it on once XP boots up.

Word to the wise for future readers- If you're not getting errors from your hardware and you're having problems with your computer in BootCamp, it's not your hardware. If I'd spent more time online and less time running chkdsk and memtest I'd have had this figured out a long time ago.
Although there's never anything wrong with running chkdsk or otherwise ensuring your hardware is working.

Thanks for the help Chevy. I'm delighted my problem seems solved (famous last words) but I'll still act on your suggestions, since they're solid advice.
 
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