How to diagnose lockups

[Oenone]

I have a new PC that intermittently locks up when I'm using it.

Sometimes it'll be after just a couple of minutes, sometimes I'll have it
running for hours, but it's locking up every couple of days and I don't know
what to do about it.

There's no error message displayed or anything, but the mouse pointer
freezes and all keyboard response is ignored. Whether Windows itself
continues to tick away I've no idea but I suspect not. The only way out is
to hit the reset button.

I've run Memtest86 and it returned with no problems. I've also had
graphically intensive apps running (e.g., Half Life 2) for good periods of
time with no problems.

I've no idea how to go about diagnosing this problem, as I don't have any
spare hardware to throw at it and I also don't have a way to recreate the
problem on demand. Can anyone suggest how I might be able to look into
resolving this? Could this possibly be a driver issue or is it more likely a
hardware problem?

My system:

MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum/SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3500+ CPU
1Gb CL2 RAM
Hiper True Power 525w power supply
ATI Radeon 800 XL PCI-E graphics card
250GB SATA drive
120GB IDE drive
DVD+/-RW drive
Windows XP Pro SP2

Many thanks,

 

[old jon]

I have a new PC that intermittently locks up when I'm using it.

Sometimes it'll be after just a couple of minutes, sometimes I'll have it
running for hours, but it's locking up every couple of days and I don't
know what to do about it.

There's no error message displayed or anything, but the mouse pointer
freezes and all keyboard response is ignored. Whether Windows itself
continues to tick away I've no idea but I suspect not. The only way out is
to hit the reset button.

I've run Memtest86 and it returned with no problems. I've also had
graphically intensive apps running (e.g., Half Life 2) for good periods of
time with no problems.

I've no idea how to go about diagnosing this problem, as I don't have any
spare hardware to throw at it and I also don't have a way to recreate the
problem on demand. Can anyone suggest how I might be able to look into
resolving this? Could this possibly be a driver issue or is it more likely
a hardware problem?

My system:

MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum/SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3500+ CPU
1Gb CL2 RAM
Hiper True Power 525w power supply
ATI Radeon 800 XL PCI-E graphics card
250GB SATA drive
120GB IDE drive
DVD+/-RW drive
Windows XP Pro SP2

Many thanks,

Check in your Event Viewer to see if you have any problems there.
Right click My Computer\Manage\Event Viewer. Any errors\warnings need
investigating.
best wishes..OJ

 

[Oenone]

Check in your Event Viewer to see if you have any problems there.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'd already checked the event log and there's
nothing unusual at all. :-(

Any other ideas?

 

[Leana]

I have a new PC that intermittently locks up when I'm using it.

Sometimes it'll be after just a couple of minutes, sometimes I'll have it
running for hours, but it's locking up every couple of days and I don't
know what to do about it.

There's no error message displayed or anything, but the mouse pointer
freezes and all keyboard response is ignored. Whether Windows itself
continues to tick away I've no idea but I suspect not. The only way out is
to hit the reset button.

I've run Memtest86 and it returned with no problems. I've also had
graphically intensive apps running (e.g., Half Life 2) for good periods of
time with no problems.

I've no idea how to go about diagnosing this problem, as I don't have any
spare hardware to throw at it and I also don't have a way to recreate the
problem on demand. Can anyone suggest how I might be able to look into
resolving this? Could this possibly be a driver issue or is it more likely
a hardware problem?

My system:

MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum/SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3500+ CPU
1Gb CL2 RAM
Hiper True Power 525w power supply
ATI Radeon 800 XL PCI-E graphics card
250GB SATA drive
120GB IDE drive
DVD+/-RW drive
Windows XP Pro SP2

Many thanks,

I had a similar problem of unexplained freezing of the screen and mouse,
that did not show anywhere as errors in the event viewer and I traced it
down to a very very dusty lugs on the graphics card fan. I have taken the
graphics card out, cleaned the lugs very thoroughly with a brush, reseated
the card and had no problems since.

Leana