So Sapph's computer is sick. Anyone have any advice?


An IT guy came to her place yesterday to fit her with a high security router and set up her desktop with Remote Desktop access for her office.

He fiddled with her settings, attempted to allow her to print documents from her work computer on her home printer, and then decided to just break everything.

It gets to the Windows loading screen and the bar scrolls accross a couple times before slowing to a crawl and then stopping entirely. We tried giving it some time to see if it could work through whatever was ailing it but after several hours it was still on the loading screen.

It will start in safe mode, but will pause for a minute or so while loading "Mup.sys." Trying to boot it in safe mode with networking is similar but it will freeze on "Mup.sys"

I've searched for similar issues on the net and found a couple threads with a lot of people complaining of the same issues. The problem is that each one of them claims to have found the solution.... and each one of them is different.

She's grabbing a Windows Installation Disk from her parents today to see if the installation can be repaired but I'm kind of at a loss with how to fix it.

I'm sure the guy did something to her networking settings to bork it... I just don't know what he did.

Any insight?

Well, the good news is that you probably don't need mup.sys... you just have to disable the service and it 'should' go away. You can probably do that through safemode, just turn it to load manually and reboot.

Did you have any luck with trying to start windows with the 'last good configuration' option?

We did try "last good configuration" and also tried restoring from 2 save points and no luck. Will try your other suggestion momentarily.

Try this: Go into the bios and switch your plug and play settings. There are probably only two options so set it to the one not currently being used.

It seems that you probably aren't failing on mup.sys but the step after it, which is likely to be the plug and play stuff.

My advice is to shoot the IT guy.

Well, don't get too attached to mup.sys being the problem. When booting in safe mode, that is frequently the last item listed before it finally loads the desktop (or login screen). As Torrin said, it's most likely something after mup.sys.

And I agree with Oriole, shoot the IT guy.

I tried changing the Plug and Play setting in the BIOS and that didn't work. I also tried using the Windows recovery/reinstallation disks. I just have no clue what to do when I'm in the Recovery Console. I did chkdsk and it said all is ok. Beyond that I am not sure what to do. I'm trying to read up on this on the interwebs but OMG so much stuff to read and no idea what is actually useful.

well from the recovery console you can try disabling mup.. type 'disable mup.sys'

I don't think that is the problem though, but hey, worth a shot!

edit: after you do that, reboot.

If I do that... can I re-enable it by simply typing "enable mup.sys"?

Edit: I tried it anyway but it didn't like my command. Says the registry for the mup.sys service cannot be located.

Final word of advice before you realize it's a lost cause...BACK UP everything needed on the hard drive. Assuming you have a USB flash/thumb/hard drive/memory stick, these will work in safe mode. Now is the time to prepare for the worst (reformatting!) and make sure you have everything you need. Better safe than sorry!

Thanks, Zan. I have already mentally prepared myself for that scenario. Luckily, I only have my music files on the desktop. So it won't be a problem to copy those to my external drive before reformatting. *shudder*

Yea if you have tried Msconfig and removed everything from start up and have gone into system restore and tried using something from a couple of days/week before the tech touched your computer, you have pretty much run out of the "easy" things to fix.

If you keep playing with it you may be able to get it to boot but what your system stability and perforance will be like after is another matter.

Suggestion to anyone who runs into a problem like this in the future. At some point, it's just faster to re-install. While it make take a couple hours to re-install, if you waste four hours fucking with it and trying to recover, you've wasted two hours. This is especially true if you have your data already backed up, or it's easy to get it backed up.

Know when to cut and run. :)

Just kick the PC if it dosen't work it will make you feel better :)

Just kick the PC if it dosen't work it will make you feel better :)

Yeah, I am fond of "percussive maintenance" myself.

When I started to date Wabo he took a look at my pc and noticed there was a dent in the case.....(it was on the floor and way to easy to kick!) and for some reason he didn't run......

Suggestion to anyone who runs into a problem like this in the future. At some point, it's just faster to re-install. While it make take a couple hours to re-install, if you waste four hours fucking with it and trying to recover, you've wasted two hours. This is especially true if you have your data already backed up, or it's easy to get it backed up.

Know when to cut and run. :)
Hindsight is a bitch. ;)

Sigh.

Reinstalled over top.

Put in ASUS cd and started installing drivers. After resetting and coming back to finish install it froze during the ASUS install and now has the same issue again.

I'm copying all her iTunes files and other assorted files and then I'm going to reformat and install, but I'm starting to think it might be a bigger issue.

I think I finally figured out what happed to Sapph's
Mup.Sys File

Just Look at it.

I think I finally figured out what happed to Sapph's
Mup.Sys File

Just Look at it.

Aaaargh! That's horrible! Something like that could really mess up your computer! And everything else in your house. QUICK throw the computer out the window!

First of all.... haha!


Secondly...

I reformatted and reinstalled.
This time instead of installing all the ASUS drivers at once I chose to do them one at a time. I imediately ran into trouble when I tried to install the drivers for the onboard LAN.

Attansic L1 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller is the name of it.

So I went into the BIOS and disabled it.

No freezing. I installed all the drivers for everything else and still no freezing.

I've re-enabled it now and I've tried a dozen different ways to update the driver for the onboard Ethernet to no avail... every time it freezes the computer. But at least now it doesn't get far enough into the installation to prevent it from restarting. My guess is that the onboard Ethernet is hosed so I'm gonna try a spare that I have for her.

My question to you guys is this: Is there any way this guy could have fried her onboard ethernet? Or is it just a coincedence that it happened the day that he came over to try to update her computer?

My question to you guys is this: Is there any way this guy could have fried her onboard ethernet? Or is it just a coincedence that it happened the day that he came over to try to update her computer?
Keep in mind, he brought a new router for my computer. Not sure if that can fry anything. But it does huff and puff a lot.

I bet he crossed the streams.

It's highly unlikely, but not impossible. Maybe the router was doing PoE (Power over Ethernet) and didn't detect the card properly to disable it.

Or maybe it's because Sapph is a cake eater...

I am neither cake nor pie eater!

Yup, all working now.


I don't know how the on board ethernet got frizzled but it's all systems go with a brand new $15 card :)