system freezes...help!!!

[Arnold]

My wife runs Windows XP Professional and after 2-3 hours of use, it
simply freezes. The mouse and keyboard are both locked out. She has
SP2 installed. I've spent over US$100 on new hardware (video card, LAN
card, memory) thinking either their's a buggy driver or bad hardware but
it hasn't made any difference. I've played with the BIOS settings but
haven't found a setting that fixes it. The PC is an AMD Athlon (K7VZA
motherboard) with 512MB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9200 128MB AGP card.
LAN card is a standard one that works fine on my Linux box. She has a
USB scanner, wireless mouse and keyboard. Monitor is a NEC LCD. Does
anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how I can troubleshoot this?
Since it freezes up tight, there's no BSOD or any info that I can find
to point me in a direction. Any help appreciated!

 

[Unknown]

Only after 2-3 hours of use? Sounds like a heat problem. Cooling fans?

 

[Arnold]

Only after 2-3 hours of use? Sounds like a heat problem. Cooling fans?

Yeah...I thought of that but after a visual inspection it appears to be
OK. The BIOS reports that the CPU fan is running at 5300 RPMs. Power
supply fan is running as well. I think I might upgrade the BIOS; only
problem is the manufacturer offers three images depending on the PCB rev
but I am unable to determine exactly which rev here motherboard is.
Can't find it etched anywhere on the board.

 

[Unknown]

As a test however you can blow a fan on the processor..

 

[Plato]

Yeah...I thought of that but after a visual inspection it appears to be
OK. The BIOS reports that the CPU fan is running at 5300 RPMs. Power

As an aside, RPMs is NOT a measure of of a heat problem. High temps are.
In other words,
your fan can be spinning perfectly, but if the heatsink is totally
clogged with greasy grime from a smokers pc you're not going to get the
cooling you may need.

 

[Guest]

The system has SP2 installed? Did the system freezing occur before SP2 was
installed? The reason I ask: I've seen this on my system, which was running
well before SP2. After anywhere from an hour to three hours, the system will
freeze. It's certainly not overheating.

I suspect there may be issues, still, with SP2. Unfortunately, the system
freezes without dumping any info in any logfiles.

My system is an Intel-based notebook with a 700MHz P3, so there are few (if
any) similarities. Yours is the only post I've found so far regarding XP SO2
and random freezes.

If I discover anything further, I'll update the thread.

jason

 

[Jeff]

I have the SAME problem. I installed SP2 a few days ago and every hour
or so it would freeze, have no clue why... i think it might be
something with audio just since everytime it would freeze i would be
listening to music or something audio intensive (like a flash site w/
music). After the third freeze i couldnt handle it and just system
restored back and everything is fine now.
I heard it changes the video drivers so i might give it another chance
and install new drivers afterwards but i doubt that would be the
problem.

750mhz Athlon (Asus K7V)
386mb of SDRAM
Geforce 2 (Asus v7700 Deluxe)
Audigy MP3+

 

[Malke]

I have the SAME problem. I installed SP2 a few days ago and every hour
or so it would freeze, have no clue why... i think it might be
something with audio just since everytime it would freeze i would be
listening to music or something audio intensive (like a flash site w/
music). After the third freeze i couldnt handle it and just system
restored back and everything is fine now.
I heard it changes the video drivers so i might give it another chance
and install new drivers afterwards but i doubt that would be the
problem.

750mhz Athlon (Asus K7V)
386mb of SDRAM
Geforce 2 (Asus v7700 Deluxe)
Audigy MP3+

Do you have DivX 5.2 installed? If so, uninstall it and go back to DivX
5.1.

Mlake

 

[Guest]

I have a huge codec pack install.. not just divx, im guessing i probably have
it but that doesnt make sense. I have reinstalled SP2.. its a lot better now
that it doesnt freeze every 3 hours, it only freezes like a few times a day
now. I have found winamp causes it to freeze a LOT more often (winamp agent
is NOT up) but WMP and iTunes work perfectly fine and dont seem to make it
freeze. I went to the winamp forums and removed a faulty plugin they said
creative installs but it still causes freezes. So winamp is faulty for me but
even without using it, i still get the occassional freeze.