Control Panel not working any more

First time visitor to this BBS and I have to say I'm impressed with the amount of useful help being dished out.
Okay, that's the kiss-a$$ stuff out of the way.

System
XP Pro w/ SP2, updated.
P4 3.0C o/c @ 3.6
1GB DDR500
160 GB disk, partitioned 12GB for OS and programmes (C:\) and the rest for games, home DV (D:\)
Mobo, mouse, graphics drivers and WinXP all patched up to date (but see below).
Whole system self-built about 15 months ago, solid as a rock since first powered up, until...

Symptoms
1) Click Start, Help.... cursor turns for a while, then....nothing happens. Egg timer goes away, no new windows open.
2) Click Control Panel, System.....cursor turns for a while and....nothing happens, as above.
3) Right-click desktop to get to display properties and.....nothing happens. You see the pattern here?
A few of the other Control Panel options don't engage either.
4) Click Start, Turn Off Computer, and try Restart or Turn Off... the computer goes through the motions then 'hangs' at the Saving Your Settings screen (whether or not I've done any of the above).
5) Start-up is slower than normal, takes a while for icons to appear on the desktop.
6) Shut-down after triggering one of these events always puts a box up saying that rundll.exe is not responding and it needs shutting down manually.

NONE of the above happens when I start in Safe Mode - everything works just fine, but there is no hardware conflict showing up and nothing new added to the system.

7) Tried to install new drivers for mouse / graphics and the installation wizard hangs completely, has to be shut down in Task Manager.

Things Tried So Far
Virus scanned - nothing there.
Malware / Spyware scanned - nothing there.
Cleaned up registry with Regclean / EasyClean / PC Rescue
Defragged the disk (you never know), but that made no difference
At Start, Run used the command sfc /scannow to repair XP files (found this on a different forum - that still gave no improvement.
Booted from XP CD-ROM and tried the repair option - no improvement.
Booted from XP CD-ROM and tried a re-install of XP. Got a message saying that changes had been made to the hard disk, but no improvements seen after the restart, still the same errors.
In Safe mode, I copied all the .cpl files from system32/i386 into system32/ and system32/dllcache, as well as kernel32.dll, but still no better.

I'm still left with a flaky system that a couple of days ago was really solid. Oh, and for some reason, there are NO restore points available (I deleted them a while ago as part of housekeeping, wouldn't you know it).

The only thing different is that Media Player crashed spectacularly with an AVI file I'd authored that it didn't like, giving a complete system shutdown. Since restarting, I've noticed a couple of small slowdowns, but the system is getting worse each day, to where I am now with it.


Anyone care to take a shot at this? I would be really grateful.

 

Have you tried a system restore to an earlier date or running chkdsk?

 

clogman--Perhaps scan with HiJackThis and post log as suggested here
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=37074
Ideas to repair Windows
http://www.theeldergeek.com/repairing_windows_xp.htm
If no help there, you may be in for a format and reinstall. Hopefully you can back up personal data first.

 

INFO: Windows Rundll and Rundll32 Interface
PeteC is their any possibility "clogman" could have installed an old program / or game (w95/w98/ME) that could be introducing this problem?

 

clogman--Since rundll.exe usually is a trojan in WinXP, you could also run a trojan scan
http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/trojanscan.asp
http://swatit.org/
And/or you could submit the rundll.exe file to a scan here
http://virusscan.jotti.org/

 

Thanks for the responses so far guys.
Sorry, the file that needs to be closed manually is rundll32.exe, a standard, uncontaminated Windows file, and NOT rundll.exe as I first posted.

Like I said, I've run anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes that will hunt down everything nasty (been burned once before).

I can't run a system restore as all the restore points have gone (I think I got a bit too enthusiastic with the spring cleaning).

Nothing new has been added to the system since last week when the trouble started, no new hardware, no new games or programmes, so this must be something that got corrupted when Media player popped a gasket, or something I have deleted in error, though it feels like it is slowly getting worse rather than something that suddenly just stopped working properly.

As ever, any and all ideas and suggestions will be gratefully received.

 

Check in your Event Viewer for some possible clues.

 

what's in startup? the problem isn't there in safe mode but is when u've got startup items going.

clean install after a backup and u'r done in 2-3 hours

 

Clean out your Temp folder, you never know....a lot of people don't realise that a lot of stuff can build up here.

 

Thanks again for ideas and suggestions.
Here are some thoughts and responses:

Nothing in Temp folder - it gets emptied each day.

StartUp (under MSCONFIG) lists drivers for my keyboard, mouse, USB printer and PDA cradle, plus AVG and Zone Alarm. And that's it. All of these have been there for a good while now.

Event viewer yields some possible suspects, but I admit I don't know what half of it means:
Under Applications I get Error messages on LoadPerf events 3011 and 3006 and warnings on Microsoft Fax. This latter is wierd, as I don't use a fax machine and don't use the PC as a fax. Why is this initiating?
Under System, I get Errors on Service Control Manager events 7026, 7001, 7022, 7000 and 7009.
How do I determine what these are referring to?

Here's the text version of the two event logs:

SYSTEM
Type Date Time Source Category Event
Information 20/01/2006 09:39:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:39:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:21 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Error 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7026
Error 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7001
Error 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7022
Error 20/01/2006 09:15:26 Service Control Manager None 7022
Information 20/01/2006 09:13:44 RemoteAccess None 20158
Error 20/01/2006 09:13:00 Service Control Manager None 7000
Error 20/01/2006 09:13:00 Service Control Manager None 7009
Information 20/01/2006 09:12:53 eventlog None 6009
Information 20/01/2006 09:12:53 eventlog None 6005
Information 20/01/2006 09:12:38 redbook None 10

Applications
Type Date Time Source Category Event
Information 20/01/2006 09:39:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:39:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:24 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:21 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7035
Information 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7036
Error 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7026
Error 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7001
Error 20/01/2006 09:29:20 Service Control Manager None 7022
Error 20/01/2006 09:15:26 Service Control Manager None 7022
Information 20/01/2006 09:13:44 RemoteAccess None 20158
Error 20/01/2006 09:13:00 Service Control Manager None 7000
Error 20/01/2006 09:13:00 Service Control Manager None 7009
Information 20/01/2006 09:12:53 eventlog None 6009
Information 20/01/2006 09:12:53 eventlog None 6005
Information 20/01/2006 09:12:38 redbook None 10

 

Okay, here are the details from the event viewer (I am learning so much here).

APPLICATION EVENT ERRORS (all LoadPerf errors)

Time: 09:30:20
Event ID: 3011
Unloading the performance counter strings for service WmiApRpl (WmiApRpl) failed.
The Error code is the first DWORD in Data section.

Time: 09:30:23
Event ID: 3006
Unable to read the performance counter strings of the 009 language ID. The Win32 status returned by the call is the first DWORD in Data section.


SYSTEM EVENT ERRORS (all Service Control Manager errors)

Event ID: 7026
Time: 09:29:20
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load: ASPI32

Event ID: 7001
Time: 09:29:20
The Computer Browser service depends on the Server service which failed to start because of the following error:
After starting, the service hung in a start-pending state.

Event ID: 7022
Time: 09:29:20
The Server service hung on starting.

Event ID: 7022
Time: 09:15:26
The Fax service hung on starting.

Event ID: 7000
Time: 09:13:00
The CAILI service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Event ID: 7009
Time: 09:13:00
Timeout (30000 milliseconds) waiting for the CAILI service to connect.

CAILI is something to do with my USB card reader and, again, it was installed months ago so I don't think can be contributing to current problems. Don't know why it's not starting correctly though - there doesn't seem to be any problem with the reader itself.
The Fax service baffles me - is this a default startup within Windows?
And error event 7022 - the Service service hung on starting. What the hell?

 

The plot thickens.....

Windows seemed to be a lot more stable this morning, with no hangups despite the same error messages, but I uninstalled the scanner and USB card reader and reinstalled the drivers.
On restart, no error messages appeared and Control Panel worked just fine.

And then.....

I went to Services to disable the Fax. Computer hung completely, got a "not responding" at the top of the dialog box for the service.
So I jabbed the reset button and waited for the machine to restart. First time I tried to use the Start menu, it hung up as I opened Settings...Control Panel. I mean, the open pop-up menus (Win98 style) just froze on the desktop and the computer became unresponsive.
Another manual restart and things were better, and checking in Services revealed that Fax was now changed from automatic to disabled.

After a "proper" restart, I went into \System32 and deleted all the .cpl files I could find. Almost immediately, Windows refreshed them, presumably with cached intact copies.
Another "proper" restart and it seems to be a lot more stable than before.

So thanks again for all the input and advice.
A combination of checking which events were potential troublemakers, reinstalling drivers, refreshing all the cpl files and just letting Windows take as long as it needed when changing settings (rather than getting impatient and jabbing the reset button) seems to have cured the problem for now.

 

Spoke too soon.

Just tried to open Help and Support and the cursor twirls and.....nothing happens.

Must check to see if my insurance covers the computer being hurled out of an upstairs window.

C:\ has a 1.5GB free space and a 1.5GB pagefile.sys This hasn't changed much in a long while.

Oddly enough, Control Panel is still working fine, far as I can tell.