My computer is acting up. After rebooting, it run run normally for
about 2 minutes then it locks up. The screen freezes and the mouse and
keyboard don't work. The hard drive still spins. The CD tray still
opens. The CPU fan still spins. The power supply back fan is spinning
(does not seem to be moving ait). The video card has passive cooling.

If I do a hard reboot, everything will work again for a few minutes.

Any ideas what the problem is? I am thinking that something is over
heating. I orginally thought it might be the power supply but the fans
and drives still seem to be getting power.

This is a XP system, AMD athlon X2 6400, 2 gig, 1 hard drive, video
card with passive cooling, ASUS MB.

On 12/7/2011 12:35 PM, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> My computer is acting up. After rebooting, it run run normally for
> about 2 minutes then it locks up. The screen freezes and the mouse and
> keyboard don't work. The hard drive still spins. The CD tray still
> opens. The CPU fan still spins. The power supply back fan is spinning
> (does not seem to be moving ait). The video card has passive cooling.
>
> If I do a hard reboot, everything will work again for a few minutes.
>
> Any ideas what the problem is? I am thinking that something is over
> heating. I orginally thought it might be the power supply but the fans
> and drives still seem to be getting power.
>
> This is a XP system, AMD athlon X2 6400, 2 gig, 1 hard drive, video
> card with passive cooling, ASUS MB.
>

You might be infected by something. If it was a cooling issue I believe
the machine would shut itself down. Have you tried booting into
safe-mode to see how it acts?

I assume you have a WINDOWS operating system. Next time it "runs
normally" quickly run msconfig, go to start-up and disable everything
and reboot. See if that helps.

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:6a5fd2be-6585-479c-ba03-(E-Mail Removed)...

> My computer is acting up. After rebooting, it run run normally for
> about 2 minutes then it locks up. The screen freezes and the mouse and
> keyboard don't work. The hard drive still spins. The CD tray still
> opens. The CPU fan still spins. The power supply back fan is spinning
> (does not seem to be moving ait). The video card has passive cooling.
> If I do a hard reboot, everything will work again for a few minutes.
>
> Any ideas what the problem is? I am thinking that something is over
> heating. I orginally thought it might be the power supply but the fans
> and drives still seem to be getting power.

Any PC repair shop can test the PSU in seconds (free.) It takes
much longer to test RAM but this should also be done.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

phughes200 hotmail.com wrote:

> My computer is acting up. After rebooting, it run run normally
> for about 2 minutes then it locks up. The screen freezes and the
> mouse and keyboard don't work. The hard drive still spins. The
> CD tray still opens. The CPU fan still spins. The power supply
> back fan is spinning (does not seem to be moving ait). The video
> card has passive cooling.
>
> If I do a hard reboot, everything will work again for a few
> minutes.

Check the power to your computer, before your PC power supply.

For checking your PC power supply, all you have to do is use a
Windows utility while it is under load.
--














>
> Any ideas what the problem is? I am thinking that something is over
> heating. I orginally thought it might be the power supply but the fans
> and drives still seem to be getting power.
>
> This is a XP system, AMD athlon X2 6400, 2 gig, 1 hard drive, video
> card with passive cooling, ASUS MB.
>

On Dec 7, 12:35 pm, phughes...@hotmail.com wrote:
> My computer is acting up. After rebooting, it run run normally for
> about 2 minutes then it locks up. The screen freezes and the mouse and
> keyboard don't work. The hard drive still spins. The CD tray still
> opens. The CPU fan still spins. The power supply back fan is spinning
> (does not seem to be moving ait). The video card has passive cooling.
>
> If I do a hard reboot, everything will work again for a few minutes.
>
> Any ideas what the problem is? I am thinking that something is over
> heating. I orginally thought it might be the power supply but the fans
> and drives still seem to be getting power.
>
> This is a XP system, AMD athlon X2 6400, 2 gig, 1 hard drive, video
> card with passive cooling, ASUS MB.

Khlong capacitors scraped together in industrial amounts off the
sidewalls of the worst sewer ditch that could be found in Southeast
Asia. There were whole production runs scrapped by pre-assembled
namebrands, such as Dell, due to substandard supplies. The issue runs
back ten years and involves millions and millions of dollars.
Manifest problems widely vary among operational anomalies, to include
causing power supply units to fail prematurely. In an article from a
Gigabyte corporate meeting with a journalist, the journalist is
presented damning evidence placed against for false claims of
industrial malfeasance ASUS used against Gigabyte, as well as contrary
practices ASUS employed in knowingly incorporating substandard
capacitors. Gigabyte is in big time on building their premier product
line with number one, Japanese solid-state capacitors, you know.

In which case, you'll need a 60- to 100-watt soldering iron to break
capacitors out with minimal hand aptitude for not destroying traces
that quickly wick off the iron's heat.

I try running the computer again. Froze after a few minutes.

I went into msconfig and selected the diagnostic mode and reboot. It
start up and I start to run a malware scan (malbytes) and everything
went smoothly for about 8 minutes and it froze. I rebooted again and
it frooze during the start process.

In the past, a failing power supply would cause reboots or failure to
boot. I am not seeing that. When frozen the fans are still running and
the screen image is frozen.

Any suggestions?

My next step is to try the last known working restore point. After
that, I will probaby replace the power supply.

I

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> My computer is acting up. After rebooting, it run run normally for
> about 2 minutes then it locks up. The screen freezes and the mouse and
> keyboard don't work. The hard drive still spins. The CD tray still
> opens. The CPU fan still spins. The power supply back fan is spinning
> (does not seem to be moving ait). The video card has passive cooling.
>
> If I do a hard reboot, everything will work again for a few minutes.
>
> Any ideas what the problem is? I am thinking that something is over
> heating. I orginally thought it might be the power supply but the fans
> and drives still seem to be getting power.
>
> This is a XP system, AMD athlon X2 6400, 2 gig, 1 hard drive, video
> card with passive cooling, ASUS MB.
>

You say "video card with passive cooling".

Download GPUZ and check the video card temps. You'll
need to launch that quickly, before the thing freezes up again.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

Screenshot here. If the card is hitting 110C, that
will cause problems. In the example, they're running
around 47C or so.

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/r...puz-sensor.jpg

*******

As another test case, take the side cover off the PC, and point
a large cooling fan at it. Does it run for longer now ? If so,
clean the filter tray in the computer case. (Antec cases have
a hidden plastic filter that pulls out from the bottom of the
case.)

You can also display temperatures with Speedfan (almico.com).
That's another example of a readout program.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan445.exe

Paul

On Dec 7, 5:22 pm, phughes...@hotmail.com wrote:

> Any suggestions?
>
> My next step is to try the last known working restore point. After
> that, I will probaby replace the power supply.
>
> I

Yea, sure. . .don't spend a lot of money on the PS. If it works
peachy for awhile and then starts in on you again after a year, tops,
you'll be feeding it power supplies. I replaced my ASUS Athlon S751
with a Gigabyte MB and AMD Orleans socket AMD2. Had the S751 a long
time, but also rode its instability issues to their logical
conclusion. High priced, higher end /asYS at the time I got cheap for
third or something as a returned item. Now they don't cut as much
slack, don't mind selling crap, then charging restocking or both-way
shipping. Yep, sure is nice now to have a stable Gigabyte board that
isn't mad. Discounted low-tech but new. Also have a stable ASUS
Intel setup, about a 3 years old with a 2.6 Celeron D, I changed out
for a used $12 P4 3.2;-- but if it starts in on me and eats its power
supply, I'll might just chuck it. I built the Gigabyte for $100 (MB/
CPU/Mem) and can more than live with unbelievable temps for a 45-
micron 2.4Ghz single core. If connected on 24/7, even getting 3, 5
years out of MB/CPU ain't really paying much for all that play, though
I'd expect 5 years normal use out of a MB.

Up to today, this system has been stable for over 5 years. I have had
to replace the power supply before. The current one is a decent mid
quality one. I also replaced the video card a few years ago to get
better performance.

I check all the voltages coming out of the ps and they are all within
spec with the system on with a virus scanning program running (in
other word the hard drive is spinning and reading data). The CPU temp
looks good. The PS fans are spinning but I don't feel much air coming
out (the PS reduces fan speed based on load). It does not feel hot.

The system has been running for about two hours so far. Before it
frooze after 10 minutes. The only real difference I made was to turn
all the services on in msconfig. Not sure what is going on. I wonder
if somehow a required service was turned off and the programs froze as
a result. The odd thing is that I have not touch those settings in
well over a year.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Up to today, this system has been stable for over 5 years. I have had
> to replace the power supply before. The current one is a decent mid
> quality one. I also replaced the video card a few years ago to get
> better performance.
>
> I check all the voltages coming out of the ps and they are all within
> spec with the system on with a virus scanning program running (in
> other word the hard drive is spinning and reading data). The CPU temp
> looks good. The PS fans are spinning but I don't feel much air coming
> out (the PS reduces fan speed based on load). It does not feel hot.
>
> The system has been running for about two hours so far. Before it
> frooze after 10 minutes. The only real difference I made was to turn
> all the services on in msconfig. Not sure what is going on. I wonder
> if somehow a required service was turned off and the programs froze as
> a result. The odd thing is that I have not touch those settings in
> well over a year.

Have you looked in Event Viewer, to see what kinda stuff
is being dumped in there.

Have you done an offline scan for malware lately ?

Paul