Steve said:
thanks Paul, I used Nero, ran and it, but it only ran for about 18 seconds.
thinking to myself that is not a good sign.
plus after reading this, not sure what my next step should be.........
If your computer freezes even when in BIOS.......
Well, that sounds BAD.
Something very basic and important must be broke.
Your problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with your OS, so no
repairdisk will help. Bios is low-level.
You CAN try to replace some components with others if that is an option.
Memory would be a good start.
If you want to spend some money on it, you can bring it to your local PC
repairman.
In my experience, all the money you spend on it is money gone. You could
spend that too on a new machine, and with repaircost easily $50 an hour
without garantueed result...
Sorry. I would give up on a machine freezing in BIOS.
(Or at most try replacing memorymodules only from another PC with
comparable memory)
Regards,
Erwin Moller
do you have any ideas?
I'd start with a visual inspection of the inside of the machine.
Is the heatsink still attached to the socket properly ? Are the
tops of the capacitors bulged ? Did the power supply make a
burnt smell lately ?
(Picture of bulged caps. This can cause instability of the CPU,
if the caps are part of the Vcore regulator.)
http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image004.png
Two approaches are -
1) Simplify the hardware setup. For example, disconnect the hard
drive and the CDROM drive from the motherboard. Now, go into the
BIOS. Does it run longer than 18 seconds without freezing ?
The problem with simplifying, is that there probably isn't too
much you can strip out of that machine. It might have integrated
graphics, instead of a video card, so that can't be removed.
If it had both integrated graphics, and a video card, then the
video card could be removed (and the monitor cable moved over
to the integrated graphics connector).
When you remove a component, it does two things. It reduces the
power consumption a tiny bit. And in the event that the component
you removed is the culprit, you might see a change in the behavior
of the system. Some computers have several add-in cards installed,
so there is more stuff to remove.
2) Swapping components for known good ones, is another technique.
But that is for someone who is well equipped with parts. Processors
are usually pretty reliable, so RAM would be a better candidate for
a swap. Also, the power supply would be something to try (if you
don't have a multimeter, and don't want to bother checking the
current supply).
There is another poster here, who might suggest measuring the power
supply voltages, but not every user is happy with the thought of
doing that. You do need to know a little bit about electronics,
to do it. (Which is why I was hoping the BIOS might have a
hardware monitor page showing voltages.) The output voltages should
be within 5% of the true value (3.3V, 5V, 12V, -12V, +5VSB).
When it freezes, does the computer respond to the reset button ?
Does the computer have a reset button, separate from the power
button ? After it is reset, does the next freeze happen sooner ?
If so, that would suggest there is a thermal component to the problem.
(I'm just looking for as many symptoms as can be gathered here.)
Does the BIOS have a RAM test ? Does it always make it all the
way through the RAM test, with no strange pauses as the RAM test
counts up ?
Do the visual inspection first, and see if there is anything
obviously out of order in there. Looking at stuff, is a pretty
cheap test
Paul
