Intermittant computer lockup.

[Neil]

I have Win2000 installed on a Athelon 850 computer with
512 mb of ram. Recently I have been experiencing an
intermittant lockup/freezeup for no apparant reason. It
will happen almost anytime whether I have applications
open or not. I have even used the Task Manager to close
all the processes that are allowed and this does not
help. It seem that everytime I install a new hardware
item that it gets worse. Recently I installed a USB2 port
and now the problem is worse. Before, sometimes I could
go for days without a lockup, but now it seems to happen
every 5 minutes to an hour. If I leave the computer on
overnight for backup purposes, it is frozen in the morning
and some of the backup does not take place. Someone told
me I have a memory leak but with the Task Manager open, I
don't see any application that is using any resources.

Can anyone explain this? It is very frustrating to be
doing something and have a lockup. Have gotten into the
habbit of saving whatever I am doing every minute or so to
avoid losing my work.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Steve Duff [MVP]]

Random hard lockups (where even the mouse cursor won't move)
are usually a symptom of a hardware problem. And when they
start out of the blue it is almost always a sign of degraded hardware.

Occasionally an errant video driver or some such will turn out to be the
cause, but this is mostly a thing of the past.

These problems can be very frustrating for an end-user because
there is often nothing in the event log to clue you as to the problem and
you usually don't have a bunch of spare parts sitting around to try.

Here are the most likely culprits:

1) Thermal or power (fans, etc.)
2) Memory
3) Connectors and cables not fully engaged
4) Motherboard
5) Chipset drivers

The first thing you need to do is open the case up take an inspection
flashlight and start looking it over closely. Most of these problems will cause
visible signs. For example if your video card has a fan on it, you can
see if it isn't turning properly. Blow out the dust. Disconnect and reconnect all the
cables, memory and cards one at a time to make sure they are properly mated
to their connectors.

Take special note of the filtering capacitors on the system board (the
small, plastic-coated metal cylinders that seem to grow like mushrooms
near the CPU.) On inexpensive boards these age prematurely, and there willl
often be a brown or grayish oxide oozing out of the tops to indicate this. If this
is the case a motherboard replacement is the only solution. (This is probably
the #1 cause of this issue I see in older Athlon systems.)

If your motherboard is VIA-chipset based you should download and install
the latest VIA "Hyperion" drivers. You can also download the free X86
memory tester and exercise your memory.

Best of luck

Steve Duff, MCSE, MVP
Erogdic Systems, Inc.