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So a couple months ago, I installed the Mod Tools to a flash drive I had, with the intent to make a project out of it. The reason for this was so that I could switch it from computer to computer and always have my work portable.
About a month ago, my computer, running Windows XP, crashed. The light came on and the fan went into pretty much overdrive, but the keyboard, mouse, and monitor as good as ignored it. This was after I had been running the Mod Tools for a good 5 months.
After I had gotten ahold of a new computer, running Windows 7, I plugged my flash drive into that. All seemed fine for a while, but a week later, it had crashed with exactly the same symptoms.
Now I have a different computer from those 2, which has Windows 7, but I'm wondering whether or not to reinstall the Mod Tools. I remember something about it being recommended for you to install it to the C drive, so that could be it. I have used the same Tools on a different computer, a WinBook laptop, and that always works fine. I read something in the comments below the download on FileFront where a guy said that Norton went bezerk when he installed it.
So that is the end of my story... thoughts/suggestions?

Well first off, Norton is garbage. So don't trust what one guy told you that Norton went berserk.

I really doubt it's the actual mod tools doing it. For one thing, this community has been using it for 5 years now, we'd know if such a major problem like that was caused by the tools.

It's probably something else that you've done with both computers. Some other software you've installed, the same virus on the computers, goodness knows with as little information I know about your computers.

THEWULFMAN wrote:Well first off, Norton is garbage.

It's the top installed security software for businesses, which says a lot. It's hands down the best security software I've ever used in my 7 years in I.T. We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess. Even if yours is wrong.

Teancum wrote: We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess. Even if yours is wrong.

Nice burn.

Anyway, I guess I'll download, scanning it with Norton along the way.

Teancum wrote:

THEWULFMAN wrote:Well first off, Norton is garbage.

It's the top installed security software for businesses, which says a lot. It's hands down the best security software I've ever used in my 7 years in I.T. We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess. Even if yours is wrong.

One time a few years back, I had Norton installed in my desktop. Then a virus wormed its way into my computer with little-to-no difficulty. I lost almost all of my data because I had to reformat all of my hard drives, all while Norton sat on its fat, bloated backside and did nothing, it didn't even detect anything. Now I use avast! Home Edition (free) and batches of malware and malicious software has tried to attack my baby, but avast! said "nope.avi" each time and threw those terrorists in Virus-Guantanamo(sp?); albeit, Norton is nowhere near as terrible as McAfee or Trend Micro... Also, have you tried ESET NOD32 Security Suite?

ANYWAY, the only thing I can think of is this: when you munge, you put a load of read/write passes on whichever storage device the Mod Tools are located. This is also why one should NEVER defragment a flash drive; they can't endure a fraction of as many read/write passes as a magnetic hard disk drive, and the defragmentation process puts millions of passes on the device being defragmented, thus cutting out around a year of a flash drive's life. The point I'm getting at is you're really putting that little flash drive to the test, but it doesn't entirely make sense that it could be affecting the other peripherals in the computer. What are your computer's specs? Could you post a DirectX diagnostics report?

Marth8880 wrote:

Teancum wrote:
It's the top installed security software for businesses, which says a lot. It's hands down the best security software I've ever used in my 7 years in I.T. We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess. Even if yours is wrong.

One time a few years back, I had Norton installed in my desktop. Then a virus wormed its way into my computer with little-to-no difficulty. I lost almost all of my data because I had to reformat all of my hard drives, all while Norton sat on its fat, bloated backside and did nothing, it didn't even detect anything. Now I use avast! Home Edition (free) and batches of malware and malicious software has tried to attack my baby, but avast! said "nope.avi" each time and threw those terrorists in Virus-Guantanamo(sp?); albeit, Norton is nowhere near as terrible as McAfee or Trend Micro... Also, have you tried ESET NOD32 Security Suite?

ANYWAY, the only thing I can think of is this: when you munge, you put a load of read/write passes on whichever storage device the Mod Tools are located. This is also why one should NEVER defragment a flash drive; they can't endure a fraction of as many read/write passes as a magnetic hard disk drive, and the defragmentation process puts millions of passes on the device being defragmented, thus cutting out around a year of a flash drive's life. The point I'm getting at is you're really putting that little flash drive to the test, but it doesn't entirely make sense that it could be affecting the other peripherals in the computer. What are your computer's specs? Could you post a DirectX diagnostics report?

This.

Er... DirectX diagnostics report?

PvtMichaelJCaboose wrote:Er... DirectX diagnostics report?

Windows + R to bring up the Run window. Then type dxdiag, hit enter, profit.

PvtMichaelJCaboose wrote:Er... DirectX diagnostics report?

http://URL Shorteners are disallowed on Gametoast. Use direct links only./wNyLvL

Viruses (for the 99.999999%th part) can't access BIOS-level functions such as fan speed. If you're experiencing a high-speed fan problem that's the CPU's way of compensating for heat. Heat *could* be caused by a trojan that repeatedly clones itself into memory, but the vast majority of the time that's a hardware problem. An easy way to check is CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager, then click on Performance. If CPU usage stays high then you could very well have a trojan that's causing the issue. If not you're more than likely experiencing a slow hardware failure.

Teancum wrote:Viruses (for the 99.999999%th part) can't access BIOS-level functions such as fan speed. If you're experiencing a high-speed fan problem that's it trying to compensate for heat. Head *could* be caused by a trojan that repeatedly clones itself into memory, but the vast majority of the time that's a hardware problem. An easy way to check is CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager, then click on Performance. If CPU usage stays high then you could very well have a trojan that's causing the issue. If not you're more than likely experiencing a slow hardware failure.

Ahhh, yes, this is most likely the problem, since many viruses are constantly sending information to a remote server about what the victim is doing.

Viruses like that *don't* use much CPU time. The whole point of those particular viruses is to transmit data without the victim knowing. The trojans I speak of are simply to annoy, and aren't very common anymore.