my computer randomly locks up and i have to reboot.

[Guest]

recently the number of "lock-ups" have been increasing.

here's what happens:
i'll go about doing whatever i normally do on my computer, and all of a
sudden all processes cease, the mouse is glued in one position, and my
computer is silent (nothing but the usual fan).

what's bizarre is that my computer will "lock-up" regardless of what i'm
doing.
examples of times when this has happened: when i'm playing a video game,
listening to music on itunes or winamp, running a virus scan, even just
opening a program or switching from one to another via the taskbar!

help please! it's driving me insane and i'm so baffled.

thanks in advance.

 

[Guest]

Can you post the "specs" of your PC? Without them I can offer this much: In
my experience, most lockups, freezes are caused by video card issues. Mainly,
multiple drivers (ghost) installed. Secondly, your driver (video) may need
updating.
How about checking the update and see what happens.

 

[Guest]

usually USB conflicts or IO memory overlapping... Disable BIOS System Cache
in Memory (or it may be called BIOS Cacheable) and diable the Video BIOS
Cache (that also is in the computer's main BIOS settings menus)

You may also have driver files that are corrupted from turning off the power
to the computer before windows has a chance to gracefully shut it down for
you.

Checkdsk /f from the command prompt in Windows Safe Mode Command prompt Only
would be my first task

Defrag the entire drive next

Checkdsk /f once more

make sure no video or BIOS cacheing is enabled in the system BIOS menus

Turn off APM in the BIOS (Advanced Power Management) sometimes also called
APIC. It screws around with USB connections and memory I/O mapping

Start windows in normal mode, let it come up on its own, log in let it do
its thing for about 10-15 minutes - even if it is quiet for a bit, let it go.
Only if everything is frozen for 15 minutes would I pop the power -
otherwise, let it come up on its own, after 15-20 minutes of "rest" the
registry changes should be done, and you can use Start Shutdown buttons to
let windows do a graceful shutdown on its own.

Once it has powered off, start up once more in normal mode and repeat the
last step - you know, let windows come up and rest a while. It gives you a
chance to get to know your computer on a level you probably never knew! This
second bootup and rest is creating your last known good configuration which
is actually based on the successful shutdown the previous time. After 5-15
minutes of resting, you can do a graceful shutdown using Start Shutdown and
let it power off on its own.

If you always power down this way, you will always be able to use the "Last
Known Good Configuration" which is the option you should choose when
rebooting after a serious system failure or device conflict. It's kinda like
magic the way it works when you do it right!

The other guys will here will give you plenty of help on figuring out which
device or setings are actually causing the problem. Odds are, its related to
the video card or a USB device like a mouse, webcam, etc. PC's weren't meant
for games... get a Mac for that!

 

[Guest]

what os are you using? I'm on Wxp home and i've thoroughly searched the bios
settings. i cannot find anything about any type of windopws cache. the same
with apm. i found a general power management in the bios but i don't know
what to disable.

 

[Guest]

I finally got it fixed.

it could be an overheating problem, check your ventilation and how many fans
you have and make sure they are all working. if you need to, wipe up the fan
of any dust and try taking off the cse for the cpu fan and let the heat
diffuse so that it doesn't back-up on the cpu.

if that doesn't work, try doing a repair of the system. put in the windows
cd, then follow the steps to reinstall the os, but when it asks you what os
you want to overwrite, choose the os and press rand it will reinstall the os,
but will leave everything (your files) alone. if you had sp2, then just
reinstall that after you finish the repair.

 

[johnboy]

I finally got it fixed.

it could be an overheating problem, check your ventilation and how many fans
you have and make sure they are all working. if you need to, wipe up the fan
of any dust and try taking off the cse for the cpu fan and let the heat
diffuse so that it doesn't back-up on the cpu.

if that doesn't work, try doing a repair of the system. put in the windows
cd, then follow the steps to reinstall the os, but when it asks you what os
you want to overwrite, choose the os and press rand it will reinstall the os,
but will leave everything (your files) alone. if you had sp2, then just
reinstall that after you finish the repair.

"ZachS" wrote:

> recently the number of "lock-ups" have been increasing.
>
> here's what happens:
> i'll go about doing whatever i normally do on my computer, and all of a
> sudden all processes cease, the mouse is glued in one position, and my
> computer is silent (nothing but the usual fan).
>
> what's bizarre is that my computer will "lock-up" regardless of what i'm
> doing.
> examples of times when this has happened: when i'm playing a video game,
> listening to music on itunes or winamp, running a virus scan, even just
> opening a program or switching from one to another via the taskbar!
>
> help please! it's driving me insane and i'm so baffled.
>
> thanks in advance.

i have had the exact same prob on two seperate occasions and it turned out to be a wire in the case that became entangled with the CPU fan and stopped it dead in its tracks which caused the system to lock,,