smp just destroyed windows (sadface)

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ghost6303

2[H]4U
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Jul 24, 2004
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ok so about 3 days ago i started running the smp client. i came home 2 days ago and noticed the computer was hardlocked on a black screen. i figured i was overclocked too much eventhough it was orthos stable for about 12+ hours. so i droped it from 3600 to 3200mhz. left for work again everything was fine. came home last night to find it at the black screen again, folding being the only program running. now this is running at 3.2ghz while at 3600mhz-12h-orthos-stable voltages (1.525vcore, 2.2 RAM, max fsb mch voltage the board will give) so it *should* be rock solid. i restart it and boot windows. as soon as i get into windows it restarts. i did this a few times before downclocking even more, first to 2.7 then back to stock. apparently overclocking isnt the problem. for some reason my regular f@h clients i used to run got installed as services, so they are starting up with windows. although this sholdnt be a problem i deleted the folders to prevent them from running.
i get into windows but explorer.exe wont load (on its own, i can load it from task mgr) and theres all sorts of popups saying the registry had to be restored, and was successful. from task manager, i see the only process i didnt tell windows to startup, smpd.exe which happens to be running from the f@h SMP folder on my desktop. it didnt load the client and start processing WUs causing it, its using 0% cpu and theres no cores active, just that one exe which takes 3 tries to kill. i highly doubt its a virus, although thats the feeling im getting youl see why next, i have a hardware firewall infront of a DMZ and 2 layers of virus protection, and it was downloaded strait from stanford. its very unlikely.
after i saw all this the comp restarted again. this time when i was at the login screen, my secondary acount was gone. fine. i booted into administrator, killed the process and went to delete the directory so it wouldnt load, before i could do that it restarted again. this time at the login screen, the admin acount is now gone as well. theres no more acounts for me to log in with. when i get home i have to reinstall windows. f@h was the ONLY software i installed in the last week, and it is the only process running other then basic windows processes. from what ive been able to gather im convinced this is the problem. i know its in beta still, but i never figured it would wreck a computer. il just stick to the basic client, unzip one file and run. il decompile the installer for the smp when i get my computer online and see whats in it, theres got to be something royaly screwed up. theres also a registry key a scan picked up that i didnt recognize but had a feeling has to do with this, il post it when i get home.
anyone know wtf happened? i have been at work most of the last 3 days and barely had time to do anything other then run folding and send a couple emails, no new software, no running programs, no games, nothing. this pisses me off....
 
Sorry to hear about your problems but I kinda doubt FAH did all that.

Deleting a folder is not they way to stop a service from running.
You should have booted to safe mode and used the services mmc to disable it, or ran -configonly to remove it.

With all the reboots and overclocking and high voltages you might have baked a RAM chip or a capacitor.
:(
 
I don't know what is going on, but I doubt it was the SMP client's fault. That said, I wouldn't rule it out. The first thing that came to my mind was a failing HDD. I'm sorry I don't have much more to contribute, this is a difficult situation. After this kind of disaster, I would reinstall windows. In my experience, the system will be unstable forever now.
 
I'd also have to agree. While it could remotely be related to the SMP client it does not sound like it. It sounds like some piece of hardware is crapping out on you. I know the SMP client is beta but I've not heard of anyone having this sort of a problem with it, just the client itself crapping out or giving some errors, but not totally wrecking the OS installation. Like I said, it could be the client though, just does not sound like it.
 
hard to say WTF happened. Nothing good, to be sure.

After you install windows again, don't overclock. Let things be stock for some time. Check on stability. No F@H for a while.

I kinda doubt it was the SMP client. But you have to rule out the easy stuff first.

Post your results.

good luck!

Fold on FTW!

:D
 
well the computer still wont get into windows but i booted memtest from a floppy and all my ram passed. i doubt its hardware related, and all the hard drives are new (2-4 months old, and theres 5 of em, unless all five went at once its not that)

deleting the folder, which contained the exe was the only way i could kill it, i couldnt get into windows, in safe mode or otherwise, long enough to get into the whole services list and find it and disable it.

I know the SMP client is beta but I've not heard of anyone having this sort of a problem with it, just the client itself crapping out or giving some errors, but not totally wrecking the OS installation. Like I said, it could be the client though, just does not sound like it.
Click to expand...
thats exactly what i thought, but what im seeing all points to this as the problem. only other thing i could think of is that i put too much stress on the processor, but i can load bios, command based programs (memtest) even a small linux shell from a pen drive, no problems or errors. i think it just did something to windows, which is now completely screwed up. what it did i have no idea. il install a clean windows on a second hard drive so i can preserve my boot drive and il see exactly what happened when i get it all online again.
 
Hearing someone say "two layers of virus protection" usually makes me cringe.

Are you entirely sure that those two were compatible? Unless I am mistaken or the general conception of proper virus protection has changed in the past few years I was under the assumption that having more than one form of virus protection was prohibitive at best....?

202276
 
ghost6303 said:
deleting the folder, which contained the exe was the only way i could kill it, i couldnt get into windows, in safe mode or otherwise, long enough to get into the whole services list and find it and disable it.
Click to expand...

In safe mode no fah program or service would be starting. If it's not stable in safe mode you have other issues like a virus or nasty spyware or just general corruption.
 
ghost6303 said:
il install a clean windows on a second hard drive so i can preserve my boot drive and il see exactly what happened when i get it all online again.
Click to expand...



sounds like a reasonable plan.
 
Even though the SMP client runs the CPU at "100%" I find that when I use the simulated workloader in TAT.exe the temps go up an additional 10c. I think the SMP workload still leaves some CPU headroom. Sorry that the SMP client was running, but the system probably would have died anyway.

I've had thermal shutdowns that corrupted the OS to the point that is was in a reboot cycle just inside windows, I had to re-install the OS to fix it, but after the re-install it worked perfectly...
 
i saw smpd.exe still loads while in safe mode. its not in the registry windows/current version/run under local machine or current user, its not in the startup menu, its got to be hiding somewhere else in the registry, but its not stable long enough to search for it :rolleyes: it IS acting exactly like a virus, but i have trouble believing this because this computer is fort knox, network security is my field of expertise, i know what im doing- most of the time anyway, not only is it separated from the dirty internet its also firewalled from other computers in the house incase another one becomes infected. im aware of every process that starts up and every file installed, unless its a rootkit that somehow got above the OS level.... il look into that.

JBavousett said:
I've had thermal shutdowns that corrupted the OS to the point that is was in a reboot cycle just inside windows, I had to re-install the OS to fix it, but after the re-install it worked perfectly...
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it wasnt temp problems, coretemp never got over 40c and bios reports the NB and other temps at or less then that. and the SMP wasnt running, it wasnt crunching numbers, the four instances of the process folding_A1 were not running like they would usualy be, only smpd.exe- cpu usage is at 1%

EDIT: forgot to add, i booted from windows CD and ran recovery console >CHKDSK /r it says it found 'one or more errors' and fixed them (didnt restart durring this 90 min process) but even that did nothing.


Are you entirely sure that those two were compatible? Unless I am mistaken or the general conception of proper virus protection has changed in the past few years I was under the assumption that having more than one form of virus protection was prohibitive at best....?
Click to expand...
no, im not running all the free virus software i can download like alot of people like to do (like my family computer, but thats not up to me)
the order goes:
cable modem> hardware firewall/router, which branches off to all the other computers and to my dmz. the family's traffic is filtered thru the dmz but returned through the same router back into the main network. the dmz sends data thru a separate connection to an SMC barricade which is connected finaly to my computer with its own antivirus and firewall.
if some virus got past all this then my hats off to you hacker guy.
 
I have to agree with Tytalus on the virus thing, one good program is enough, two can get you in deep do do.

Kind of hard to make total sense of your post, all lower case and little or no punctuation doesn’t help much when trying to look over your problem.

That said, I have to assume you read the instructions that state emphatically not to use the program in Start as a Service mode.

If you are using Vista you need to go into control panel/User Accounts and click on “Turn user accounts on and off” and uncheck the button, if not already turned off. After the reboot then reinstall the program. In reality most programs should be installed in that mode and after you are done go back and recheck the checkbox.

The program SMP Windows does have an uninstall feature which works pretty well but does leave some junk in your registry. Easy enough to fix, go to start/run and type “regedit”. When the reg editor opens click edit then find and type “folding” (without the quotes) and you will be taken to an open folder on the left side of your screen named Stanford something or other. Delete the Stanford main folder complete with the sub-folder. With as many problems as you were having you probably should continue searching for “folding” and delete any key (there should not be anymore folders at this point) associated with it. WARNING, always back up your registry first.

At that point I would do either a repair install of Windows or simply a new install over the old one and try things again. Once you find what works, then do your fresh install complete with format and life should be good again.

Luck
 
I would try out all your hd's, and make sure that your psu is in good condition
 
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