Intermittent PC lock up

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Putim

Dear all,

This is my first post, I've had a lot of help from these forums before
and the guys who respond to them are brilliant and have saved me many
hours of headaches...thanks a million.

There is one problem however that I cannot solve...

I have an Athlon 1.4, 512SD Ram, 2 80Gb Hard Drives, Win2k Pro, and a
128mb Nvidia SE Graphics Card...

My PC is on 24/7, and runs fine when its left alone. In a morning I'll
go to play some music and it will lock up, leaving which ever note it
was playing repeating over and over...also, whilst watching Avi/Mpeg
or any other type of file...but sometimes, it will run for hours
playing CounterStrike or Mp3 then other times it only takes 10 minutes
to lock up and give out this crazy sound, to get going again I have to
power off the PC and reboot...

I have replaced the RAM, Hard Drive and Graphics Card (hence why I
have 512 and 2 seperate 80Gb Drives) I have also replaced the Heat
Sink (the PC runs at about 50 degrees, and system temp is about 45 I
think...)

I have also stripped the PC down and air dustered all the ports and
sockets...and after all this the problem seems to be worse...I cant
even watch a 20 minutes Avi file without a lock up (and the crazy
sustained sound of course...) I have the latest Virus updates and have
reformatted twice since the problem began..

The PC is current at a shop being looked at, and they have ran a
Hardware checker on it for the last 48 hours and only found one bad
cylinder one my C Drive..(which I dont believe to be the problem, as I
tried both drives on there own and it still locks up)...

If anyone kind enough to respond needs any more info please ask..

Please Help!!!!
 
In this type of problem, the more details, the better.

1) mobo make/model?

2) power supply make/model?

3) memory make/model?

4) Are you OC'ing? Have you tried w/ BIOS defaults?!!! Setup Defaults?

5) Have you tested memory w/ memtest-86 or DocMemory 2.0?

6) Does it ever happen when NOT under stress?

7) Have you monitored temps *when* this happened (i.e., last reported temp)?

8) Have you tried stress specific apps, like Prime95? 3DMark2001?
SiSoftware Sandra 2004?

9) Have you tried a fresh install of the OS?

10) Did it *ever* run OK, or has this always been a problem child?


Jim
 
I have had similar as yet unsolved problems, (my computer frozen a few mins
ago,
(OE crashed) so I am retyping this!!).
One thing I am considering is whether my power supply is not over loaded at
times. You appear to have replaced everything apart from the PSU, which is
probably
cheaper to replace.
Did you replace all that stuff before or after the problems started, its not
clear to
me?
I also have two drives (much smaller ones!!) maybe try it with just one
drive?
Opps you have done that!
Your symptoms are fairly similar to mine but I don't get probs playing
music or or video (well I haad one occurance of a note repeating) it is
usuall OE which freezes on me).
Was it a cheapo computer like mine?
Mine also runs fine when left alone!! - Works well if you don't use it!!

Let us know it you get it fixed!
Have a look at the PSU though, I am sure the computer shop could
change that easilly enough.
 
On 16 Apr 2004 12:46:43 -0700 As truth resonates honesty
Dear all,

This is my first post, I've had a lot of help from these forums before
and the guys who respond to them are brilliant and have saved me many
hours of headaches...thanks a million.

There is one problem however that I cannot solve...

I have an Athlon 1.4, 512SD Ram, 2 80Gb Hard Drives, Win2k Pro, and a
128mb Nvidia SE Graphics Card...

My PC is on 24/7, and runs fine when its left alone. In a morning I'll
go to play some music and it will lock up, leaving which ever note it
was playing repeating over and over...also, whilst watching Avi/Mpeg
or any other type of file...but sometimes, it will run for hours
playing CounterStrike or Mp3 then other times it only takes 10 minutes
to lock up and give out this crazy sound, to get going again I have to
power off the PC and reboot...

I have replaced the RAM, Hard Drive and Graphics Card (hence why I
have 512 and 2 seperate 80Gb Drives) I have also replaced the Heat
Sink (the PC runs at about 50 degrees, and system temp is about 45 I
think...)

I have also stripped the PC down and air dustered all the ports and
sockets...and after all this the problem seems to be worse...I cant
even watch a 20 minutes Avi file without a lock up (and the crazy
sustained sound of course...) I have the latest Virus updates and have
reformatted twice since the problem began..

The PC is current at a shop being looked at, and they have ran a
Hardware checker on it for the last 48 hours and only found one bad
cylinder one my C Drive..(which I dont believe to be the problem, as I
tried both drives on there own and it still locks up)...

If anyone kind enough to respond needs any more info please ask..

Please Help!!!!
Click to expand...

Home computers and windows were never meant to be,"Servers".Leaving it
on 24/7 is not a good idea.Just re-boot.



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
email shepATpartyheld.de
Free songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm
 
Dear all,
Click to expand...
(major snippage)

Assuming ambient air temp of 25C, air temp inside the
case should only be 30-40C. (Get a cheap indoor/outdoor
therm with the lead you can stick inside.)

CPU temp as reported by the motherboard can vary wildly
from reality. Max temp also varies by make/model of the
CPU. 60C would almost definitely be too hot, 55C is
probably too hot, 50C is marginal, 45C would be ideal
but not possible for certain CPUs.

Temps on the hard-drive can be problematic, but usually
show up as hard drives failing rather then random
reboots. 7200rpm drive almost always require constant
airflow over their electronics to keep from baking. So
either the case needs to draw air across the drives or
there needs to be dedicated fans to push air across the
drives. (Doesn't take much movement to cool the drives,
as long as they're not packed like sardines.)

You don't specify what motherboard you're using. Or if
you're using DDR RAM (2x256) or a single 512MB chip.
You haven't mentioned verifying that you have the latest
BIOS for your system, or that you're not over-clocking,
or that you have the latest hardware drivers from your
manuf. (BIOS update is probable, especially if it's an
nForce board using DDR memory.)

Random reboots are usually bad/marginal hardware.
 
Wow, I didnt expect so many replys so soon...

I've just got the PC back from the shop, they've run some Hardware
testing software on it for the last 48 hours, and only found one bad
sector on one drive...they said I've done everything they would have
and then charged me a tenner for it!!...never mind...

I'll try to answer all the questions...

My Ram is Kingston, I'm using 2 256 133 SDRAM sticks.

I'm not overclocking, and I've loaded all BIOS settings
Supervisor/Default etc..

Although I havent updated the BIOS

I've tried various software Memory Manager, Motherboard monitor and
neither report bad or high use of memory or heat...and I also tried
SiSoftware Sandra 2004..

I've reinstalled the OS and formatted twice, only installing Codecs
and one orginal game (CounterStrike) with all Windows updates..

The PC has being fine until this started about 5 months ago..(I've had
the PC about 2 years, it was built by a the shop who I've just took it
back to..

When all this started I just assumed it was the RAM, I took the old
stick out and put the new one in, didnt work..so I put both sticks
back in...

Then I borrowed a mates Hard drive and used that for about 2 hours..it
was fine..so I went and got another hard drive and used that one, then
about a week later it crashed again...so I put the old one back
in...so far I was only making the pc a better one, so it was just a
good excuse to upgrade I suppose...

Anyway, I needed a new Graphics Card, so I upgraded to a 128mb Nvidia
9200SE, and it still crashes...


My Motherboard is a JetWay I think, although I'm not sure on the
model...

Would updating the BIOS really help that much? and is it hard to do?

I'm not sure what power supply I'm using, but I'll have a look and
post it...
For the cost of a PSU I dont mind getting another one, would a 400
watt be needed?

A reminder of the Spec:
1.4 Athlon,
2 80Gb Hard Drives
512mb SDRAM 133mhz
Nvidia 9200SE 128mb Graphics Card
I also have an Fan fitted into a PCI slot, and a front fan that fits
into the spare floppy drive..(I think I forgot to mention that before)

I've also checked the Heat Sink Paste today and it looks ok..just a
little bit on there but not too much....

Thanks for the replys/suggestions guys.! As soon as I fix this I'll
post the problem...

Bye for now..!!
 
This is a bit of a long shot, and I hadn't mentioned it until now believing
the PC was relatively new, but then you just mentioned that everything had
been fine for about 5 months. That got me to thinking maybe you've had this
mobo considerably longer.

I suggest taking a *very* close look at the motherboard and look for leaking
capacitors ( http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195 ).
Whenever a perfectly good system suddenly starts acting up, esp. if it's
around 18 months old, I start looking for leaking capacitors. Having the PC
on 24/7 may accelerate the process considerably as well. I've had several
people over the past year discover this problem, much to their surprise.
Not likely, but worth checking. This is easily missed, even by an expert!
You often need to be *looking* for it to even notice it.

HTH

Jim
 
I was just looking at capacitors and I found this quoye

" An F16 fighter for example, won't contain a single electrolytic
capacitor."
From.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/11/04/1751210.shtml?tid=137

I am going to take a look at my mobo too.
I think there will be some big ones in the PSU too and I will see
if I can get a look inside the PSU housing. I think basically the bigger
they are the more likely they are to fail.
 
Cheers Jim, I will certainly have a look at that..Ive being playing
CounterStrike today and the PC has locked up every time after about 15
minutes....I messed around with BIOS settings but still no good...

I've just loaded Optimum settings...we'll see how it goes tonight..!!

Thanks again for the advice.!
 
half_pint said:
I was just looking at capacitors and I found this quoye

" An F16 fighter for example, won't contain a single electrolytic
capacitor."
From.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/11/04/1751210.shtml?tid=137
Click to expand...

Please don't toppost. You might consider the reasons.
Electrolytics form a very thin film of dielectric, which is why
they can have high capacitance in small spaces. This is pressure
sensitive. F16s tend to operate in a wide variety of atmospheric
pressure.
 
CBFalconer said:
Please don't toppost. You might consider the reasons.
Electrolytics form a very thin film of dielectric, which is why
they can have high capacitance in small spaces. This is pressure
sensitive. F16s tend to operate in a wide variety of atmospheric
pressure.
Click to expand...

Well that maybe the reason then, I just assumed the reliability of such
capacitors was the deciding factor.

Presumably jumbo jets don't use them either? They fly at high altitude
but I suppose they are pressurised, well some of them (caps) will be
anyway.

Also cost is probably a consideration on an F16.
 
Did shop first verify DC voltages? Your failures are
classic of a power supply that is constantly outputting low DC
voltage or excessive ripple voltage. In that other thread
cited by half_pint are further details and a procedure.

In the meantime, intermittent hardware can run diagnostics
fine all day and night. But once that defective hardware runs
same diagnostics in a 100 degree F room or while selected
components are heated by a hairdryer on high, only then are
the defects located.

Meanwhile, I assume this is XP? Then what did system
(event) logs report?

BIOS should have no effect on your problem since BIOS is
supplemented by OS once system boots. If this is an NT based
OS, then list of hardware reasons for failure is sharply
diminished. In the meantime, you have three things to do:
voltage measurements, comprehensive diagnostics at elevated
temperature, and system log information.
 
Cheers Jim, I will certainly have a look at that..Ive being playing
CounterStrike today and the PC has locked up every time after about 15
minutes....I messed around with BIOS settings but still no good...

I've just loaded Optimum settings...we'll see how it goes tonight..!!

Thanks again for the advice.!
Click to expand...

Telling us your motherboard is a "Jetway" doesn't reveal a whole lot
except that it's low-end. Details such as the chipset, preferribly even a
link to the manufacturer's product page might help.

Does it have a separate sound card or the integrated sound? You might try
disabling the sound (temporarily) to see if the game still has problems.

In answer to another post, yes you should consider updating the bios.
Low-end boards often have some glaring bugs in the earlier bios versions
and they may not even bother to provide full documentation of the
problems, fixes in each bios release. It's fairly straightforward to do,
briefly you just download the bios and flasher (if it's not included) and
put those files on a DOS boot floppy (available from many sources like
http://www.bootdisk.com ) then boot to it and run the flasher with
filename of bios at the command prompt. Google search it for a more
detailed direction.
http://www.google.com/search?q=bios+update+instructions
 
Cheers Jim, I will ce<WHACK>
Click to expand...

Look, maybe people over in the UK are just retarded but uh, STOP THE ****ING TOP POSTING! And if
you're too God damn stupid to know what top posting is, DON'T POST AT ALL! `, \

Second:

"I've loaded all BIOS settings Supervisor/Default etc.."

"I've just loaded Optimum settings...we'll see how it goes tonight..!!"

....stupid...REALLY ****ing stupid, on both accounts.

But hey, don't feel too bad:

"I've just got the PC back from the shop, they've run some Hardware
testing software on it for the last 48 hours, and only found one bad
sector on one drive...they said I've done everything they would have
and then charged me a tenner for it!!...never mind..."

You're not even CLOSE to being as stupid as the people you took the machine to, to get it looked
at. o_O

Okay, next, use some common sense!

Let's rule out the obvious:

Are all the lil fans inside moving? Yes? Then it's not any sort of heat problem, pay no attention
to that stupid ****in retard who was tellin you to go buy a heat sensor...*shakes head*...God damn
idiot overclocking gamers anyway, EVERY problem to them is a heat problem. *rolls eyes*

Next, WHEN is it freezing? When it's doing nothing? When you're doing something CPU/memory intense
(like watching a movie or playing a game)? To test it, turn on your machine, let it boot into
Windows, then leave the stupid lil bastard alone for a good 24/7, if it doesn't lock up, hey guess
what it's most likely a problem with either the memory or the CPU.

Now ya said you tried another HD in it and has the same problems, so we can mostly rule out the HD
(physical components anyway). But have you checked your system for viruses and spamware? Might
wanna consider reformatting and doing a clean install of JUST Windows. If you can't get it to crash
or freeze using one of the default proggies in Windows...yeah, probably it's some kind of viri or
spamware and you just keep reinfecting yourself with it.

As far as this bullshit about "leaky capacitors" and shit like that...no...NO! Okay, let me tell ya
right now, that ain't it. That's like you've got a bad cough, yer dumbass starts surfin WebMD and
the next day you go runnin into the doctor all freaked out screaming, "OMG WTF I'VE GOT TEH
PLAUGE!!1!" Essentially all your doing with that is blindly pissing into the wind.

If you find it still freezes and so forth after a reformat and a clean install of JUST Windows, then
10 to 1 it's either gonna be a problem with the memory or the CPU or possibly some kind of system
resource conflict because idiot that you are, you have no idea what the **** you're messing with in
the BIOS. And boy lemme tell ya, if yer using WinXP and you're ****ing around with settings in the
BIOS and adding new parts, yeah, that's just gonna REALLY screw things up. Before you format your
drive you might wanna think about resetting the ESCD, cause if there's any kind of conflict that
gets created during the Windows installation, especially regarding memory addresses, yeah, guess
what, it's gonna make your machine **** up!

Oh, and if you ever go back to that repair shop again, tell them that the Mad Hatter thinks they
should give you back your ten dollars and then pay YOU for YOUR time that they wasted by not knowing
what in the **** they were even doing...running scandisk...holy sweet ****in baby Jesus...that's
like bringing your car into a repair shop cause it's not running and they change the ****in oil,
scratch their ass and tell you that's all the better they can do to try and figure out the problem.
 
Onideus said:
Look, maybe people over in the UK are just retarded but uh, STOP THE
****ING TOP POSTING! And if you're too God damn stupid to know what
top posting is, DON'T POST AT ALL! `, \

Second:

"I've loaded all BIOS settings Supervisor/Default etc.."

"I've just loaded Optimum settings...we'll see how it goes
tonight..!!"

...stupid...REALLY ****ing stupid, on both accounts.

But hey, don't feel too bad:

"I've just got the PC back from the shop, they've run some Hardware
testing software on it for the last 48 hours, and only found one bad
sector on one drive...they said I've done everything they would have
and then charged me a tenner for it!!...never mind..."

You're not even CLOSE to being as stupid as the people you took the
machine to, to get it looked at. o_O

Okay, next, use some common sense!

Let's rule out the obvious:

Are all the lil fans inside moving? Yes? Then it's not any sort of
heat problem, pay no attention to that stupid ****in retard who was
tellin you to go buy a heat sensor...*shakes head*...God damn idiot
overclocking gamers anyway, EVERY problem to them is a heat problem.
*rolls eyes*

Next, WHEN is it freezing? When it's doing nothing? When you're
doing something CPU/memory intense (like watching a movie or playing
a game)? To test it, turn on your machine, let it boot into Windows,
then leave the stupid lil bastard alone for a good 24/7, if it
doesn't lock up, hey guess what it's most likely a problem with
either the memory or the CPU.

Now ya said you tried another HD in it and has the same problems, so
we can mostly rule out the HD (physical components anyway). But have
you checked your system for viruses and spamware? Might wanna
consider reformatting and doing a clean install of JUST Windows. If
you can't get it to crash or freeze using one of the default proggies
in Windows...yeah, probably it's some kind of viri or spamware and
you just keep reinfecting yourself with it.

As far as this bullshit about "leaky capacitors" and shit like
that...no...NO! Okay, let me tell ya right now, that ain't it.
That's like you've got a bad cough, yer dumbass starts surfin WebMD
and the next day you go runnin into the doctor all freaked out
screaming, "OMG WTF I'VE GOT TEH PLAUGE!!1!" Essentially all your
doing with that is blindly pissing into the wind.

If you find it still freezes and so forth after a reformat and a
clean install of JUST Windows, then 10 to 1 it's either gonna be a
problem with the memory or the CPU or possibly some kind of system
resource conflict because idiot that you are, you have no idea what
the **** you're messing with in the BIOS. And boy lemme tell ya, if
yer using WinXP and you're ****ing around with settings in the BIOS
and adding new parts, yeah, that's just gonna REALLY screw things up.
Before you format your drive you might wanna think about resetting
the ESCD, cause if there's any kind of conflict that gets created
during the Windows installation, especially regarding memory
addresses, yeah, guess what, it's gonna make your machine **** up!

Oh, and if you ever go back to that repair shop again, tell them that
the Mad Hatter thinks they should give you back your ten dollars and
then pay YOU for YOUR time that they wasted by not knowing what in
the **** they were even doing...running scandisk...holy sweet ****in
baby Jesus...that's like bringing your car into a repair shop cause
it's not running and they change the ****in oil, scratch their ass
and tell you that's all the better they can do to try and figure out
the problem.
Click to expand...

LOL. Your style is a welcome change Mr Hatter.
 
You want us to wander through reams of useless, previously
read material to find one new sentence? How shortsighted.
You were even taught in school that all past reference
material and bibliography go at end. Please show one
professional paper written foolishly as you recommend. Old
material at end so that, on a rare occasion, we can reference
what we already knew - what was previously read. We don't
need to read many previously read posts. We need the new
stuff first.

Top posters are clearly superior people. They are tolerant
of the foolish bottom posters - whose posts even make google
searches difficult. Top posters don't routinely criticize the
intolerant, bottom posters for making posts difficult to read,
to locate, and who are so immature as to criticize.

Normally I just ignore those farcical and insulting bottom
posts as unfortunately difficult to read. Tolerance of those
who would even bottom post. But your discourteous nature is
so pathetic as to even post four letter indecency. Criticism
of this intolerant bottom poster is justified and necessary.
Please learn to post with respect. Top post using only civil
words - or just remain quiet. If so intolerant, then stew in
your own juices. We need not hear your intolerant tirades.

Even more insulting is to wade through reams of old and
previous posts only to find that Onideus Mad Hatter has again
posted so many irrelevant four letter words. Typical response
of a few bottom posters.
 
Onideus Mad Hatter said:
On 17 Apr 2004 12:43:16 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Putim) wrote:


Now ya said you tried another HD in it and has the same problems, so we can mostly rule out the HD
(physical components anyway). But have you checked your system for viruses and spamware? Might
wanna consider reformatting and doing a clean install of JUST Windows. If you can't get it to crash
or freeze using one of the default proggies in Windows...yeah, probably it's some kind of viri or
spamware and you just keep reinfecting yourself with it.
Click to expand...

Because he has tried a different HD you can rule out viruses and spamware
you would have to be as mad as hatter not to.
Unless the other drive contained the same software the problem cannot be
software, changing the drive and not clearing the problem proves it is a
hardware
problem.

..
 
Personally I prefer top posting, it has many advantages and it
makes posts easier to read.

And it is alo true that bottom posters are usually the ignorant
insulting bossy type.

I think their main problem is an inflexible mind due
probably to low intelligence low intelligence

It a real pain in google groups when I have to go back online
to read a post because the text is at the bottom and requires
an extra link to be clicked.

I guess if you have the attention span of goldfish top posting
might be a problem though.
 
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