Win2K system freezes

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tuxfan

I have a older Dell OptiPlex running Windows 2000 Pro, after running
any where between 1 to several hours the system locks up. I need
do a full power off for the system to reset. I reseated the drive
cables, memory and swapped the power supply. Could this problem
be caused by one of the two hard drives? Is there any software
(free) that will allow me to copy boot drive to another drive?
 
tuxfan said:
I have a older Dell OptiPlex running Windows 2000 Pro, after
running any where between 1 to several hours the system locks
up. I need do a full power off for the system to reset. I reseated
the drive cables, memory and swapped the power supply. Could
this problem be caused by one of the two hard drives?
Click to expand...

Depends on whether it really is locked up or not. If the
HD led is on all the time when its 'locked up', it could
certainly be continuously retrying on a bad sector or it
could be the drives getting stinking hot due to a bad fan etc.

Post the Everest SMART stats for the drives,
ideally after its been running for say 40 mins
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Post the cpu temp using Everest too.

More likely to be bad caps on the motherboard
tho now that you have swapped the power supply.
Is there any software (free) that will allow
me to copy boot drive to another drive?
Click to expand...

The time to lockup is a problem, you need something reasonably
fast to get it done before it locks up. xxclone might be viable,
essentially because it can be restarted after a freeze. Those
free ones wont work if the drive has bad sectors tho. You
should be able to decide if it has from the SMART data.
 
Rod said:
Depends on whether it really is locked up or not. If the
HD led is on all the time when its 'locked up', it could
certainly be continuously retrying on a bad sector or it
could be the drives getting stinking hot due to a bad fan etc.

Post the Everest SMART stats for the drives,
ideally after its been running for say 40 mins
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Post the cpu temp using Everest too.

More likely to be bad caps on the motherboard
Click to expand...

I'v seen lots and lots (Hundreds, literally) of these old Dell
Optiplexes come in to my shop. I've rarely seen a dead one. And I've
yet to see any Dell, of any vairety with Bad Caps. They use good Intel
boards, they just don't die that way. Though if you used a non-dell PSU
on it, it's possible.

HOWEVER, any machine as old as yours may well have lots of dust. Get it
clean on the inside. (Canned air, or an air compressor if you have one)

Another vulnerability is fan failure. Make sure that all fans are
spinning.

Both of these things can lead to heat-caused instabitity. Which may
well explain why it takes an hour to freeze up.

Keep in mind, that there ara a limited dollar amount of repairs you
want to spend on a machine that is now worth around $100 resale,
depending on exact specs.
 
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:02:26 -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

Thanks for all of your suggestions. The power supply that I
swapped was another Dell of the same vintage. I found out
that my problem is the system hdd, it froze again and the hdd
light was constantly on, and it started making noises when
the system rebooted. I could easily throw the disk into another,
more modern, system and try make an image that I could copy to
a new drive. Can the be accomplished using free software?
 
tuxfan said:
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:02:26 -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

Thanks for all of your suggestions. The power supply that I
swapped was another Dell of the same vintage. I found out
that my problem is the system hdd, it froze again and the hdd
light was constantly on, and it started making noises when
the system rebooted. I could easily throw the disk into another,
more modern, system and try make an image that I could copy to
a new drive. Can the be accomplished using free software?
Click to expand...
Yes. Someone is bound to recommend their favorite one.

I've not done enough drive imageing to really pick one for you.

Though if you have a bad drive, it may well produce a bad image.
Sufficeient for data recovery, perhaps, but maybe not one you care to
boot from.
 
tuxfan said:
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:02:26 -0700, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

Thanks for all of your suggestions. The power supply that I
swapped was another Dell of the same vintage. I found out
that my problem is the system hdd, it froze again and the hdd
light was constantly on, and it started making noises when
the system rebooted. I could easily throw the disk into another,
more modern, system and try make an image that I could copy to
a new drive. Can the be accomplished using free software?
Click to expand...

Gets tricky if the hard drive has bad sectors, most of the free
software cant handle that situation, they just give up on the first bad.

clonedisk does a pretty decent job in that situation, but it isnt free.
http://invircible.com/resq.php

 
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