This morning I awoke to find my always-on Win XP (SP2) PC had frozen -
as in, no error or bluescreen or Event Viewer message, just a complete
freeze from which a hard reset was the only way to recover. I noticed
that the clock in the system tray said 05:15 before I reset it, so
clearly this is when it froze.

I just got home from work (UK time!) and discovered it had frozen again,
just as before, this time with a clock reading of 13:34.

The times set me thinking and I realised that last night I went to bed
at approximately 00:15, and this morning I finished playing about on the
computer before heading to work at about 08:35 (e.g. 08:34!).

So it seems that my computer is doomed to freeze after exactly five
hours' idle time.

Has anyone ever come across anything like this and can suggest things to
look for as the cause? I can provide system specs etc. but right now I
have absolutely no idea where my troubleshooting should focus so I won't
provide a load of unnecessary detail only to be asked for something
completely different anyway!

The only thing I would (probably) rule out is excess heat, which I know
can cause the system to lock up - my system doesn't usually run too hot
and even when there was some astonishingly hot weather a month or two
ago, nothing went wrong with the computer, whereas these past few days
it's been nothing out of the ordinary.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Paul
London, UK

are you using default screen savers? how many minutes is it set to? Could
be a bad file relating to this...


"Paul Speller" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> This morning I awoke to find my always-on Win XP (SP2) PC had frozen -
> as in, no error or bluescreen or Event Viewer message, just a complete
> freeze from which a hard reset was the only way to recover. I noticed
> that the clock in the system tray said 05:15 before I reset it, so
> clearly this is when it froze.
>
> I just got home from work (UK time!) and discovered it had frozen again,
> just as before, this time with a clock reading of 13:34.
>
> The times set me thinking and I realised that last night I went to bed
> at approximately 00:15, and this morning I finished playing about on the
> computer before heading to work at about 08:35 (e.g. 08:34!).
>
> So it seems that my computer is doomed to freeze after exactly five
> hours' idle time.
>
> Has anyone ever come across anything like this and can suggest things to
> look for as the cause? I can provide system specs etc. but right now I
> have absolutely no idea where my troubleshooting should focus so I won't
> provide a load of unnecessary detail only to be asked for something
> completely different anyway!
>
> The only thing I would (probably) rule out is excess heat, which I know
> can cause the system to lock up - my system doesn't usually run too hot
> and even when there was some astonishingly hot weather a month or two
> ago, nothing went wrong with the computer, whereas these past few days
> it's been nothing out of the ordinary.
>
> Thanks for any help anyone can offer.
>
> Paul
> London, UK