The Phantom Returns...And Yet Another Problem

[Kuberr]

Oh so many months ago, I had a problem that whenever I shut down my computer, it would start back up again minutes later.

The interesting thing, is that I've had a problem yesterday with my DVD Drive. I was copying some files from my DVD to my computer, and halfway through, it froze. My computer simply froze. Virus? Nope, no unidentifiable processes and nothing detected by my Anti-Virus program. So, I restarted my computer, tried again, and the same thing happened. I turned my PC off last night, and then it tunred itself back on. Thus, I shut it down and I pulled out the power plug. Today, I opened up my PC, looked around, put the side panel onto the case, and then put the power plug in. Nothing happened. I was like, screw it, and then I turned on the computer. Today, I tried the same thing with my DVD's and they worked. Well, they worked, for a while. I was just about to copy the last 4 files when it froze again. This time I waited, and it unfroze after a while.

One last thing: I look at Windows Task Manager and the memory that all my processes take don't match up to the total RAM that I'm using. In fact, FireFox, which usually takes 100-200k of RAM only took up 30k. Something is seriously wrong here, but I can't exactly pinpoint what.

Oh, and one more thing. Ever since two days ago, explorer.exe started freezing sometimes when I tried to explore My Computer.

 

[jac006]

Wow... that's a nice comp and you're have ing those problems? ouchies... ok, first off... I would check the psu and the mobo and other hardware in your comp. Replace your psu, if you can, and put in a new one. Have you done any oc'ing lately? If your optical drives are screwing up too, I'm thinking that it's a bad mobo. If you can, I would reformat my hd and reinstall windows. That way, if you do, you can know where exactly your problem is, because, it won't be windows itself. Maybe you don't have to, though, it's up to you. THat's just what I would do. How long have you had this comp? Was it a pre built, custom and newly built, or a used? Maybe it's faulty ram. I'm not to sure in these first steps, but, maybe in the future I might be able to answer your questions if you answer mine...

btw... if I've helped you in this post in anyway, could you please click on that wireless router looking image under my name to add to my reputation. thanks!

 

[Kuberr]

Hmm, well, I reformatted three days ago because I felt my computer was slowing down at the startup and I downloaded a bunch of adware and spyware then.

I only OCed my graphics card.

I built the PC myself. I built it around July-ish?

Oh yeah, and I got an error that said Cyclic Redundancy Check today when I tried to copy the last four files.

I don't want to assume that my parts are faulty either, because then I have to send them in, and I can't use my PC then and if the parts aren't faulty, I have to spend around 60 bucks. That's something I do NOT want to do, if I can help it.

I just realized something else. I was playing BF2 on Sunday, and about two hours into it, there were period of lag where I got 15FPS while I normally get 80FPS (I play with 1024x768 resolution).

 

[jac006]

COuld it be the file types? Without actually being in the place of your comp, I can't know. And without you sending in your components, you'll probably have the same problems over and over and over again and you'll probably regret that you didn't send in your components. Because you've already reformatted, I can only go to the conclusion that it's hardware.

A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of hash function used to produce a checksum, which is a small number of bits, from a large block of data, such as a packet of network traffic or a block of a computer file, in order to detect errors in transmission or storage. A CRC is computed and appended before transmission or storage, and verified afterwards to confirm that no changes occurred. CRCs are popular because they are simple to implement in binary hardware, are easy to analyze mathematically, and are particularly good at detecting common errors caused by noise in transmission channels.


CRCs are based on division in a commutatinve ring, namely the ring of polynomials over the integers modulo 2. In simpler terms, this is the set of polynomials where each coefficient is only one bit, and arithmetic operations wrap around. For example:


(x2 + x) + (x + 1) = x2 + 2x + 1 = x2 + 1

Two becomes zero because 2 is 10 in binary, and we discard all bits except the last one. Multiplication is similar:

(x2 + x)(x + 1) = x3 + 2x2 + x = x3 + x

We can also divide polynomials mod 2 and find the quotient and remainder. For example, suppose we're dividing x3 + x2 + x by x + 1. We would find that

x3 + x2 + x = (x + 1)(x2 + 1) - 1 = (x + 1)(x2 + 1) + 1.

In other words, the division yields a quotient of x2 + 1 with a remainder of -1, which, since it is odd, has a last bit of 1.

Any string of bits can be interpreted as the coefficients of a polynomial of this sort, and to find the CRC, we divide by another fixed polynomial. The coefficients of the remainder polynomial are the CRC, and there are simple, efficient algorithms for computing this remainder, such as the one shown below. CRCs are often referred to as check sums but such designations are not strictly accurate since, technically, a checksum is calculated through addition, not division.

The main portion of the algorithm can be expressed in pseudocode as follows:

function crc(bit array bitString[1..len], int polynomial) { shiftRegister := initial value // commonly all 0 bits or all 1 bits for i from 1 to len { if most significant bit of shiftRegister xor bitString = 1 shiftRegister := (shiftRegister left shift 1)xor polynomial else shiftRegister := shiftRegister left shift 1 } return shiftRegister }Note: A common speedup uses a lookup table indexed by multiple most-significant bits of the shiftRegister to process multiple bits at once. A 256-entry lookup table is a particularly common choice.

There are two variations which can be applied to the above implementation; applying one or both gives a total of four equivalent ways to compute a checksum:

1. The shiftRegister can be reversed, so its least-significant bit is tested and it is shifted to the right by 1 bit each step. This requires a polynomial with its bits reversed, and produces a bit-reversed result. This variant is actually the one most commonly in use.
2. Instead of changing multiple bits in the shiftRegister based on the xor of one bit of the shiftRegister and one bit of the bitString, it is possible to xor (compute the parity of) all the bits of the shiftRegister selected by the polynomial and the bitString and add that single bit to the shiftRegister. With suitable adjustments to the polynomial, this also produces the same remainder. This variation is difficult in software, but used in some hardware implementations, and is often used when describing the close relative to a CRC, the linear feedback shift register.

The specific CRC is defined by the polynomial used. To produce an n-bit CRC requires a degree-n polynomial, of the form xn + … + 1. This is naturally expressed as an n+1-bit string, but the leading (xn) term is normally implicit, leaving an n-bit string Thus, depending on the bit-order convention used, the standard CRC-16, x16+x15+x2+1, will be represented as the hexadecimal number 0x8005 or as 0xa001.

One of the most commonly encountered is known as CRC-32, used by (among others) Ethernet, FDDI, PKZIP, Winzip, and PNG.I ts polynomial can be written 0x04C11DB7 or 0xEDB88320.



Polynomials and types

CRC-8x8 + x2 + x + 1CRC-CCITTx16 + x12 + x5 + 1CRC-16 (IBM)x16 +x15 + x2 + 1CRC-32 (802.3)x32 + x26 + x23 + x22 + x16 + x12 + x11 + x10 + x8 + x7 + x5 + x4 + x2 + x + 1CRC32c (Castagnoli)x32 + x28 + x27 + x26 + x25 + x23 + x22 + x20 + x19 + x18 + x14 + x13 + x11 + x10 + x9 + x8 + x6 + 1




CRCs and data integrity

While useful for error detection, CRCs cannot be safely relied upon to verify data integrity (that no changes whatsoever have occurred), since, because of the linear structure of CRC polynomials, it is extremely easy to intentionally change data without modifying its CRC. Cryptographic hash functions can be used to verify data integrity.

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