Computer freezing not sure why

P

phughes200

I will try to look at the caps this weekend or after the holidats.

I do not have a clone drive. I really do not want to install XP again.
If it comes to that, I will consider building a new system.
 
F

frischmoutt

Did you try to re-arrange the supply cables to the internal units ? Straight
on to the boot HD, same for the video card then split for other peripherals
?
I has similar behavior some months ago and I discovered thet my HD was after
3 derivations. putting it on first position did solve the issue.
regards
 
P

phughes200

Now getting BSOD.

I guess I made progress. Just not sure in what direction. So far, I
thinnk I proved the power supply and video card are not the problem.
Based on the CPUs temperature, I believe the cpu fan is pkay. That
leaves the MB, CPU, Memory, HD and software, The memory passed a
simple test. Hard to do a detail memtest if the system won't run. No
idea how to check the CPU or MB. I susprct that the MB died.
 
P

phughes200

The nightmare continues In addition to the BSOD I get freezes where
the display turns into diagonal lines.

I have built many system starting with the 286 generation of intel
chips. Yes, I am older. Most I built from scratch. I enjoy the
building process but loath rebuilding the software. I have a few
question about rebuilding this system.

1) If I replace the current mb with a similar mb with the same cpu and
northbridge, can I just swap out mother boards? Will I need to
reactivate windows XP (home edition). Will MS say this is a new system
therefore forcing me to buy a new OP system?

2) If I replace the mb, CPU, and memory can I swap the MB and just
update drivers? The last time I did this (many years ago) it didn't go
well. I would like to keep XP with the goal of having a dual boot
system in the future. Will I need to reactivate windows XP (home).
Will MS say this is a new system therefore forcing me to buy a new OP
system? Can I use the windows 7 upgrade edition for this system?

I realize that in general it is best to start over. It is nice to have
a clean system. Right now it is part a time issue and part a $ issue.
I have an orginal legal copy of XP with service pack 1. Needless to
say there will be many many updates to perform. I also have some
program that will not run with Widows 7.
 
M

Mike Easter

I believe the cpu fan is pkay. That leaves the MB, CPU, Memory, HD
and software, The memory passed a simple test. Hard to do a detail
memtest if the system won't run. No idea how to check the CPU or MB.
I susprct that the MB died.

I don't think you know yet/ have found out/ very much about which
hardware is OK and which isn't; not enough to take action as if the mobo
died/ is sick.

Since my world is full of alternate operating system live CDs and flash
drives to bootup, that is always one of the steps I take when I'm trying
to figure out if I have a major hardware problem or not.

It seems to me that you keep trying to boot that XP install because
that's all there is that resembles an operating system -- but you don't
know if it is broken or not. You can't tell that by negative malware
tests. So boot up something else that is known to not be broken; it
might require burning a CD/DVD or writing to a flashdrive.
 
M

Mike Easter

1) If I replace the current mb with a similar mb with the same cpu and
northbridge, can I just swap out mother boards?

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

Unless you have some source of mobo hardware, I doubt if you would be
able to get a good enough deal on that vintage mobo to make it worth
saving that other hardware of cpu and ram of unknown integrity.

IMO you need to know more about what is wrong before you can go forward
in that direction.
Will I need to reactivate windows XP (home edition). Will MS say this
is a new system therefore forcing me to buy a new OP system?

That licensing obstacle may not arise and if it does, it is solvable.
2) If I replace the mb, CPU, and memory can I swap the MB and just
update drivers? The last time I did this (many years ago) it didn't go
well. I would like to keep XP with the goal of having a dual boot
system in the future. Will I need to reactivate windows XP (home).
Will MS say this is a new system therefore forcing me to buy a new OP
system? Can I use the windows 7 upgrade edition for this system?

You can solve any problem with XP thinking you have a new system. MS
Win7 upgrade license requirements include from XP, not from older.
I realize that in general it is best to start over. It is nice to have
a clean system. Right now it is part a time issue and part a $ issue.
I have an orginal legal copy of XP with service pack 1. Needless to
say there will be many many updates to perform. I also have some
program that will not run with Widows 7.

sp1 can't be upped directly to sp3, you have to go thru' an intermediate
step.

I would want to find out if my hardware would run some linux distro or
Bart's PE type of OS first, because if it won't, you have to diagnose
and solve the hardware problem first. If you have a significant hw
problem like mobo, then I would be shopping for a newer mobo than trying
to use one to match the cpu/ram you have.

Then if you have to buy a mobo/cpu/ram package, you would be installing
your XP from scratch and upping it to sp3, which means that you need to
do what MS sez about that:

"Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Windows XP Service Pack 1a (SP1a)
must be preinstalled before you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)."
 
P

Paul

The nightmare continues In addition to the BSOD I get freezes where
the display turns into diagonal lines.

I'm a little curious, how you decided the video card was OK.

*******

Diagonal lines sounds like a video problem. It's a passive
cooled card.

One of the other posters mentioned doing a capacitor check.
That would include, not only checking for leaking caps on the
motherboard, around the CPU socket. It would also include
checking the capacitors on the video card. Pull the card
and examine for leaking caps.

Some video cards use what look like polymer caps for the
power converters, but in fact they're electrolytic. I've heard
of caps going bad on video cards, in just the same way as
there was a plague of electrolytics gone bad on motherboards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

I've even lost a couple ATX power supplies to that root cause.
And had orange colored leakage, just like the photo of
the inside of an ATX supply in that article.

Leaking motherboard caps can cause a processor crash.

Leaking video card caps, could cause "diagonal line" or
other simple geometric patterns, on failure. It's a
possibility.

Paul
 
M

Mike Easter

Paul said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

I've even lost a couple ATX power supplies to that root cause.
And had orange colored leakage, just like the photo of
the inside of an ATX supply in that article.

Topic drift follows:

Reflecting back to my Oct PS problems, ultimately I opened up the two
bad PS I had accumulated and neither of them was normal inside, with one
of them showing leaky capacitor/s and burnt places on the board where
the main power comes in.

Additionally, by waiting for a sale on a spare PS to put on the shelf, a
sale came along for $19 with a $9 mail rebate for a size which will work
in a couple of these old computers.

Then I slightly bench tested the new backup PS at the +5VSB and PS_ON
pins which I had failed to do with the previous backup PS which never
worked, but which was promptly replaced by CoolerMaster under their 2y
warranty after a year and a half on the shelf.


Previewable GG link: http://goo.gl/oRqdI+
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:54:21 -0700
Subject: No power
 
P

phughes200

Okay. Let me answer a few of the questions asked.

I removed the video card and switched to the on board mb graphics.
That took the video card out of the discussion. Still could be bad but
the system got sicker without it. I did not put it back.

A replacemnet mb that uses the current cpu would most likely have to
be used. Not my favorate choice for a fix but a new current mb
requieres a new CPU, new memory and most likely a new OP system. I
suspect that when I go to reinatall XP it wil require a new license. A
new OP system means some of my program will not work. My scanner being
one of them. Spending yet more money will solve most issues.

As to Paul's sugesstion to look at the caps. I suspect he is the
winner. One of the caps by the video slot does have a domed top. At
least one or two other appear slightly bludging at the top. One
appears to have leaked. Hard to tell. I now feel reasonally sure the
MB died.

So my question is what is the easiest path to a new MB? If I could, I
would like to start with XP and then at a future date install a dual
boot for windows 7. If I have a legal copy of XP can I use an upgrade
version of Windows 7 if I install a current generation MB?

Mike stated "You can solve any problem with XP thinking you have a new
system.". Can you tell me how. I new MB is going to require both new
memory and CPU.
 
M

Mike Easter

A replacemnet mb that uses the current cpu would most likely have to
be used.

My argument about that idea is that it requires that you have access to
'older' mobo/s for a cheap price or maybe free.

Some people have access to not really too old equipment or hardware such
as mobo, cpu, ram for free or nearly free. In that case, that is the
best deal, but I don't have those kind of sources.

So what I do on the cheap is watch out for sales of not quite so 'fresh'
new hardware on sale to clear old inventory. The brand new just
released not long ago stuff is the most expensive, but models from about
a year or so ago need to be 'unloaded' because the people buying newer
higher powered stuff don't want yesterday's hardware.
Not my favorate choice for a fix but a new current mb
requieres a new CPU, new memory and most likely a new OP system.

As a 'general' rule, if your hardware is 'pretty old' and you have to
replace the mobo and you don't have a source of an 'old' mobo to get a
good price, you need to buy a kinda not quite so 'new' year before
last's mobo on sale at a good price, choosing carefully how old it is so
that you can get the best price on cpu and ram. Currently I see in my
newspaper 8G 1600mhz DDR3 dual memory for $25 (after rebate).

You can't buy your current ram that cheaply.
I suspect that when I go to reinatall XP it wil require a new
license.

That problem is not as bad as you think. I've never experienced it, but
a lot of people write about it.

Here's an article describing how the hardware is checked by Win and how
you handle it if there is too much new hardware for Win to be happy for
the WPA http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php Windows Product Activation
(WPA) on Windows XP
A new OP system means some of my program will not work. My scanner
being one of them. Spending yet more money will solve most issues.

Your concern about wanting to use your old XP and your old peripherals
is understood. I like to keep using my old OSes and devices.
So my question is what is the easiest path to a new MB?

If you have no more access to old mobo/s than I do, I would be looking
around for a good price on a new mobo that wasn't this year's model
along with matching cpu/ram.
If I could, I would like to start with XP and then at a future date
install a dual boot for windows 7. If I have a legal copy of XP can I
use an upgrade version of Windows 7 if I install a current generation
MB?
Yes.

Mike stated "You can solve any problem with XP thinking you have a new
system.". Can you tell me how. I new MB is going to require both new
memory and CPU.

See that article at aumha. It describes the categories of hardware WPA
checks which when you fail then you have to call the activation center
and talk to a person instead of a machine.
 
M

Mike Easter

Mike said:
(e-mail address removed) wrote:

See that article at aumha. It describes the categories of hardware WPA
checks which when you fail then you have to call the activation center
and talk to a person instead of a machine.

We should clarify something. You haven't said anything about such as a
Dell OEM XP disk, so I've been assuming that you have a 'genuine' MS
XPsp1 disk.

If you have a mfr's image disk, that is a whole different kettle of
fish. You indicated that you built your system, so I assumed that you
bought your MS disk.
 
P

Paul

Okay. Let me answer a few of the questions asked.

I removed the video card and switched to the on board mb graphics.
That took the video card out of the discussion. Still could be bad but
the system got sicker without it. I did not put it back.

A replacemnet mb that uses the current cpu would most likely have to
be used. Not my favorate choice for a fix but a new current mb
requieres a new CPU, new memory and most likely a new OP system. I
suspect that when I go to reinatall XP it wil require a new license. A
new OP system means some of my program will not work. My scanner being
one of them. Spending yet more money will solve most issues.

As to Paul's sugesstion to look at the caps. I suspect he is the
winner. One of the caps by the video slot does have a domed top. At
least one or two other appear slightly bludging at the top. One
appears to have leaked. Hard to tell. I now feel reasonally sure the
MB died.

So my question is what is the easiest path to a new MB? If I could, I
would like to start with XP and then at a future date install a dual
boot for windows 7. If I have a legal copy of XP can I use an upgrade
version of Windows 7 if I install a current generation MB?

Mike stated "You can solve any problem with XP thinking you have a new
system.". Can you tell me how. I new MB is going to require both new
memory and CPU.

Can we know the motherboard make and model number ?

If the machine is an HP, chances are we can look up the motherboard
info, on the HP web site.

If the motherboard is a retail model, and the computer is home assembled,
then the make and model number may be printed in white (silk screened)
on the top of the motherboard. Look between the PCI slots for example.

You never know, a miracle might happen, and there might be identical
motherboards available somewhere. Swapping over a BIOS chip, might be
enough to fix everything up. Stranger things have happened.

*******

With regard to licensing and reinstalling the OS, perhaps you
could give some detail on whether this is an HP/Acer/Gateway
or this is a home-built machine. If you built the computer
yourself (using either retail or non-branded OEM install disc),
chances are good you can reinstall without a problem. I
moved to a new motherboard, a year after my original OEM WinXP
install, and I was able to activate over the Internet with no
phone call.

If you have a pre-built computer, like an HP, there is a license
sticker on the computer case. And that license key, plus a
non-branded OEM installer CD, might work to do an install.
So there are still some possibilities there. You could
well end up on the phone, talking to someone about your
situation, but they'll likely activate it for you.

It's also possible, you could fix the caps on the motherboard.
You just need to find someone, who will agree to do it for you.
If a TV repair shop is looking for work, you might take it
in to them, and see what they'd charge. If the caps were around
the CPU socket, it might be too expensive to "re-cap" all
of them (you might have to replace a dozen of them at the
same time, as they'll "cascade fail" if you only repair a couple).
If the damage is related to some conversion circuit powering the
video slot (like Vagp or something), maybe there are only a couple
caps that need changing. And then the labor charge won't be quite
as bad.

I don't enjoy changing caps like that. The level of enjoyment, is
a function of the hole diameter. At my first employer, the cap
holes were "oversized" and changing caps was easy enough, any home
user could do it. The second place I worked, they used interference
fit hole sizes, and getting the caps out caused a lot of cursing
and swearing, and I had a proper vacuum desoldering station to use.
I wouldn't want to do that with the crappy tools I have at home.

At one time, "Homey" used to do a motherboard for around $50,
but I think he eventually threw in the towel. Others who do
that work on the Internet, won't do it for the same bargain
pricing that Homey was offering. Changing the caps is only practical
if there are a few to do. Doing the whole board, you'd have to be a
glutton for punishment.

On motherboards with very high failure rates, it really
isn't safe to buy used or exact replacement boards on Ebay.
At least, unless they advertise the fact they've been
re-capped. Some Dell models, had like a 90% failure rate
after X years, on the motherboard. Virtually all with
cap failures. Before searching for an exact replacement,
you'd want to know whether the failures are so widespread,
that no resale boards are safe.

Some retail motherboard companies, had enough of a problem,
a successful class action suit was brought against them.
Others, had only a smattering of cap failures. And generally,
a few searches in Google, will turn up what kind of situation
you're in.

Paul
 
P

phughes200

The mb is an ASUS A8N-VN-CSM. The XP OS is a genuime stand alone disk.
The system is home built, I know in the the past I triggerred the
reactivation mechanism. Don't remember why. I might have upgraded the
MB and CPU. I have upgraded my systems so many times it is hard to
keep track of the details.

I no longer have the access to parts that I had when I was employed. I
also moved recently and deep sixed most of my old computer parts.

For a replacement mb, I have been looking at Ebay. At this stage I am
considering going to a low end current CPU package (Intel I3) and
selling the old CPU and memory. I will start with XP and wait for a
good deal on the Windows 7 upgrade.
 
P

phughes200

Allen,

Thank you for the link. I thought that the XP license was tied to the
orginal machine (i.e. mb). Based on your link, MS is reasonable and
accounts for MB replacement or even transferring to new machine. Who
knew.
 
P

Paul

John said:
This is a dead end in that I doubt you would be satisfied with Win7 on
such a system. From experience W7 takes a *lot* more horse power than
XP. I have both, a 2GB core duo running 32 bit XP and a W7 64bit I5 w/
6GB. Personally I wouldn't run W7 with less than 6GB of memory and an
Intel I5 or AMD equivalent class processor.

I'd agree with that. I have a Win7 laptop that was given to me, and
it has a single core. Compute wise, it would be the equivalent of
a P4 3GHz or so. Win7 runs fine, when it's not doing anything...
If you do anything a little demanding (indexer running in the background,
stupid AV software), again, the scheduler does a nice job of handing out
cycles to the various processes. But it feels slow when you use it
like you might have used a WinXP or Win2K machine. To get rid of that
sluggish feeling, you really need something more than that laptop was
able to give. The laptop had 3GB of memory, which seemed to be enough
for simple things.

It almost gives you that "tablet feeling".

The other option, would be to use an SSD for the boot drive, for
times when Win7 is pounding on the hard drive. For my laptop,
I'm sure the hard drive was responsible for at least some of
the sluggish feeling. The cheapest compromise SSD might be
one of those 40GB ones, which would be just big enough for
Win7 operation. That's the size my Win7 C: is set to right now.
It's about 26GB full, and needs a bit of room for things like
restore points. For mass storage (the "data" partition), you
could still use a cheaper-per-GB hard drive.

Paul
 
P

phughes200

John,

looks like we are on the same page. I always felt that buying a used
mb would be a crap shoot.

I have spent most of the day at newegg and researching options. I am
looking at an Intel 1155 cpu. It looks like that gives the best
upgrade path.

The cost really isn't bad. My old parts (CPU, Memory) have some value
on Ebay.

I am looking at the I3-2120, a Gigabyte Z68 board and 8 meg of DDR3. I
am debating if going to the I5 cpu is worth it for my use. The
toughest application is Sims 3 for my daughter. I could go cheaper on
the board but I like the flexibilty of 4 memory slot. I was surprise
how cheap memory has gotten.

Does windows 7 really need a quad core?

I don't need a fast sysyem. But I want this to last for a few years. I
like XP but it is slowly getting old.

Paul,

I look at small SS drive to work with the Z68 chip. Not in the budget.
Maybe in a few years when the prices drop.
 
P

Paul

John,

looks like we are on the same page. I always felt that buying a used
mb would be a crap shoot.

I have spent most of the day at newegg and researching options. I am
looking at an Intel 1155 cpu. It looks like that gives the best
upgrade path.

The cost really isn't bad. My old parts (CPU, Memory) have some value
on Ebay.

I am looking at the I3-2120, a Gigabyte Z68 board and 8 meg of DDR3. I
am debating if going to the I5 cpu is worth it for my use. The
toughest application is Sims 3 for my daughter. I could go cheaper on
the board but I like the flexibilty of 4 memory slot. I was surprise
how cheap memory has gotten.

Does windows 7 really need a quad core?

I don't need a fast sysyem. But I want this to last for a few years. I
like XP but it is slowly getting old.

Paul,

I look at small SS drive to work with the Z68 chip. Not in the budget.
Maybe in a few years when the prices drop.

They have some CPU performance charts here, and on the right hand side
of the page is the processor price. The disadvantage here, for the 2300
processor, is the lower core speed, which takes away some of the advantage
of a quad core.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

According to Wikipedia, the processor requirement for Sims 3 is a
1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (that's the most modern data point in their processor
listing). Your 2120 purchase is a 3.3GHz dual core, so you
definitely pass on that account. If this was going to be your
daughter's machine from now on, that would be a good choice.
That's faster than my best machine here :)

Does a quad make sense ? That really depends on how long you think
you'll keep the machine. If you look at all the 1155 processors,
the 2500K seems to have a fairly loyal following (1365 reviews on Newegg),
and you wouldn't have to think about upgrading if you popped that
one in. Chances are, when playing Sims 3, that will feel no faster
than the 2120. But, the next time you're editing video, it'll be
twice as fast during final rendering. Other programs that like
a quad are FSX Flight Simulator. Or even a certain chess program,
that searches possible moves with multiple cores. You might not
use all the cores today, but the quad gives you a bit of future
proofing.

If you don't think you'll be editing video, and there are
no heavy performance games like Crysis in your future, or
no FSX flight simulator, the 2120 will likely be the perfect
solution.

Paul
 
P

Paul

John said:
Also don't forget what I said about 32 bit operating systems:

4GB max of which 3 to 3.25 GB will show up for application use. Now if
your XP is 64 bit then it wouldn't be a problem, but that was a pretty
rare bird due to a chronic lack of third party drivers. Half of that 8GB
RAM will be wasted unless/until you upgrade to Win7, 64bit (about $120
for W7 OEM pro, $100 for W7 OEM home).

John

Actually, it doesn't have to be wasted.

I did an interesting experiment using this RAM Disk.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

What I did, was install 6GB of memory in a WinXP x32 machine.
Roughly 3GB is declared "free" with that setup. That's the
Microsoft "memory license" for a 32 bit OS.

But, when you install that RAMDisk, it can use RAM above the
4GB point. It can do that, because the RAMDisk is a driver
that runs in kernel space, rather than a user program running
in the 3GB user program space.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8694/hdtunedataram2gbabove.gif

Then, I put the page file on the RAMDisk, and tested the
performance and operation for a couple days.

I could load programs past the 3GB point, and anything beyond
3GB would cause paging out. But since the pagefile is now
running on a RAMDisk, paging is so fast, the paging is smooth
and no longer objectionable like paging to a physical disk is.

I saw a couple anomalies, such as one morning, a graphic
program loading without any graphics. So that counts as a
failure. So the notion of paging to the RAMDisk, wasn't
entirely artifact free. I've since taken the configuration
apart, as I'd only keep it, if there were no side effects.

In effect, it allows you to get some value from RAM above the
so-called "32 bit limit". And, it's possible to do that, because
the OS is using PAE anyway, which can provide virtual mappings
for a 64GB space (or more, if you have an AMD processor).

If you have some memory "left over" above 4GB, while using a
32 bit OS, there are options for "playing with it". It isn't
entirely unaccessible. Only if the OS was so old there
wasn't PAE, would you be cut off.

That RAMDisk had some humble beginnings. When they first started
offering that software, I installed it, and the first thing
I did, was try an HDTune run like the one above, and the
machine crashed. The software has improved a lot since then.
I send them bug reports, but they never reply to my email.
I can only assume they're rolling fixes in as they continue
development.

The free version of their program, is just enough to have some fun.

Paul
 
P

phughes200

Thanks for the suggestions.

In my younger days, I also played around with ramdisk.

I will look at the AMD option. I have used their chips before and was
happy with the performance. On this machine, I used the 939 socket
which was discontinued shortly after building the system which kill
any upgrade path. That is why I am looking at Intel. If I start with
the I3, I should have plenty of options (15, 17) down the road if I
need to upgrade.

I can stretch the budget. I am trying to buy what I need and can use.
Even the I3 could be overkill. My other system is a Intel Duo E8400
and seems to run everything fine with XP. Not sure how it will do with
Windows.

Like I said, one option is to buy a cheaper mb and put the savings
into the CPU. Doesn't save much because of the way Newegg bundles
their combos. The I5 chips are bundle with mb that far exceed my
needs. The I3 chips are bundle with mb that excced my needs but offer
better upgrade paths. I will keep the system until it dies.

I am past the stage of wanting to tweek systems. I just want a stable
system. My wife and daughter depend on the computers for their school
work (online class) and research. When the system act up, let just say
that they are not happy and you know what that means.
 
P

phughes200

Thank you for your help.

I replaced the mb, cpu and memory. Reinstall the orginal ps and video
card. So far, everything has been working fine. Even managed to
replace the mb without reinstalling XP. Did have to reactivate.

At some point, I will try upgrading to Windows 7 or 8.
 

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