Lockups - just shoot me...

[Tom Richards]

Posting an update on my ongoing dilemma:

Machine is a Gateway Performance 1500, circa winter 2000, with a P4 1.5 cpu
and 384 MB of RDRAM. For the past 3 months it locks up. The lockups feature
no error messages, nothing in Event Viewer and no blue screen of death. I've
done 2 clean installs of XP Pro. I've had every piece of hardware out of the
machine (including the cpu, hard drive(s), sound and video cards) with the
exception of the nic card and the mobo. I have a replacement mobo on order
from Gateway and will get it in a couple weeks. I've disabled my second hard
drive too - no help. I replaced my usb printer cable - nope. I've replaced
my scanner cable and pretty much disabled the acanner...um, no. I've removed
the old dialup modem - no relief. I've tried every software fix imaginable.

But a new symptom has presented itself and maybe, just maybe, someone can
post back with an answer? After a lockup, my visited links in IE have
returned to their unvisited color - a real nuisance. I'm ready to throw this
thing out the window. So is the link thing THE clue that will provide THE
answer?

 

[Plato]

Machine is a Gateway Performance 1500, circa winter 2000, with a P4 1.5 cpu
and 384 MB of RDRAM. For the past 3 months it locks up. The lockups feature

Hard locks are most often due to bad ram, including cache ram on the
mobo, and/or bad video card ram/drivers.

 

[Tom Richards]

Where and what are the video card and ram drivers? Are they replaceable?

 

[Plato]

Where and what are the video card and ram drivers? Are they replaceable?

No such thing as ram drivers per se. But video drivers can be had and
installed from your video card makers website.

 

[zizz]

Tom -
I've chased Freezes also... and like you think that almost
everything has been eliminated.
Plato is right that RAM is a prime suspect, so do a Google
search for MemTest86. It's freebie Memory Test Utility
that runs from a floppy and really puts RAM though its
paces. I have run the test for as long as 72 hours with
zero failures. I'm running 1gb. It's sure worth a try.
Heat is also a major consideration. Do you have any thing
in you kit of tricks that reports CPU temp? Mine almost
never runs over 50C which is considered cool.
Undersized power supplies can be a problem. If you are
running a lot of peripherals, unplug a few for testing.
Do a Google search for MaxMem, another freebie that will
free up RAM.
What Graphics Card are you using? Some ATI Radeon cards
running the very latest drivers actually work better with
earlier versions.
Have you had Windows XP do their automtatic check for
driver updates?
Are there any particular applications that seem to cause
more lock-ups than usual, such as Flight Simulator?
Do you run DirectX, and if so what version?
good hunting' - zizz

 

[Tom Richards]

Oh, right. I had brain lock there - the video drivers are up to date.

 

[Quaoar]

Oh, right. I had brain lock there - the video drivers are up to date.

Google memtest and do a complete RAM check. Run chkdsk /f from a
command prompt for disk errors. Get a can of compressed "air" (dust
cleaner) from a computer store and blow out all of the cooling vents -
intake(s) and exhausts. Run sfc /scannow from a command prompt to
verify your system files. RAM and cooling issues can cause hard
shutdowns, HD not so much but check anyway.

Q

 

[dglock]

check your power supply.
don

 

[Tom Richards]

I've already done everything you suggested except run memtest. I downloaded
the app, but can't get it to run. BTW, one of the first things I did was
swap out all of my memory sticks and the problem remains.

 

[J.C. Hornbeck [MSFT]]

If it hard locks then it's either a driver or hardware issue, but then it
sounds like you already know that. I recently lived through this same kind
of thing so I'll let you know what I found out. On my system, when I would
play certain games it would drop out to the desktop, sometimes after a few
seconds, sometimes after a few minutes. Also, sometimes it would hard hang
and sometimes it would just reboot all on its own. You never really knew
what you might get. No other applications would do this so it had to be a
software issue, right? Nope. I did a parallel install of Windows XP and it
did the same thing. I tried changing video cards, heat sinks, the power
supply, the CPU, everything, but I still had the same problem. To make a
long story short, it turned out to be a bad capacitor on the motherboard. I
replaced the motherboard and since then have experienced ZERO issues running
any game or application. The motherboard manufacturer was even nice enough
to repair my original board free of charge.

After fighting this more times than I can count and then experiencing it
myself, any time someone tells me their application or game randomly drops
to the desktop with no error, the system hard locks, or it spontaneously
reboots I always suspect a hardware issue first and I'm almost always right.
When I'm not then it's usually a third party driver issue.

--
J.C. Hornbeck, MCSE
Microsoft Product Support

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