I've pretty much narrowed down the cause of my system freezing to VUZE.
I've ruled out overheating, memory issues, malware & viruses. In fact, when I don't run Vuze for a few days, there are no lockups. I turn Vuze on and Bam! the system freezes after about an hour or so.
I've experienced this problem for about a half-year now, but the lockups seem more regular and persistent nowadays. Vuze did update itself recently…
I've scoured the vuze forums and googled until my eyes dried up. Only one suggestion seems possible and I don't know how to do it or whether or not I should: update my LAN driver. ?? Don't even know where to start. (A quick google search did not help.)
What do you suggest? Should I, just for the sake of it, reinstall Vuze?
specs: AMD phenom II (quad); windows XP; what other info would help you?
Thank you immensely.
EDIT: Wil (see below) advised updating the network card driver, which I did; unfortunately, after an hour of running vuze, XP came to a halt and I had to reset. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
EDIT2: So after reinstalling vuze, running its configuration wizard, reinstalling a network card driver, even unplugging the router for quite some time and downloading just through the modem, I would still have occasional lockups. Last time it locked up: router was plugged in, vuze was not running, no downloading/uploading; I was renaming files, deleting files—just reorganizing some folders in Explorer. Then the lockup happened. Someone suggested replacing the SATA cable to the hard drive SO THIS MAY NOT BE A VUZE ISSUE AFTER ALL.
Best Answer
It is impossible for programs that simply run as software to cause system instability or crashes.
What commonly happens, especially with torrent programs is that they simply tax the system to the maximum and can make weaknesses in other areas show up.
For example, I haven't heard of anyone having what you are saying in Vuse, but I have heard it all the time in Utorrent - and even had it myself at one point.
For me, it turned out to be a bad Realtek network driver. I went to their site and updated to the latest driver which did fix the problem - I am not sure if you are also using a Realtek card, but if you are, I certainly would upgrade.