Please help with PC freezes

[Mike DeStefano]

Hello,

I am having a problem with a laptop running Windows XP professional. Over
the weekend I started to notice the machine completely freezing up to where
I would been to shut it down with the power button and then start it back up
with the power button. I have run adaware, and also spybot, as well as an
antivirus program and that has not helped. I have noticed but havent
completely narrowed it down to being connected to the internet. I would need
to remove my network cable and see if it happens to completely determine
that. What I have noticed is that the last few times its happened, it
happened while being connected to the internet or while bring up a webpage.

I no idea how to continue to diagnose this, or fix it. I have not installed
any new hardware, or software lately and the hard drive appears to be fine,
I have not received any messages or have had any problems booting up the
machine. The freezes do not seem to occur at any fixed amount of time.

Any help I can get is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

 

[Joe]

Does your computer start to get slower and slower the longer it's on?

Joe

 

[Mike DeStefano]

Joe,

Thanks for the reply, no it doesnt get slower it just stops. Everything is
fine until suddenly it just freezes completely.

Thanks
Mike

 

[w_tom]

Collect information. For example, from command prompt, look
at what your computer is connected to before and during
problems by running NETSTAT -A . Some better firewalls get
you see or obstruct some internet access to announce the
attempt and then let you authorize it. Just another way to
see who is making internet connection to your machine.

Task Manager is important. View what is and is not running
as processes before and during your problem. Also performance
from Task Manager gives some idea of what the system is doing
when it locks.

Is your virus software or Windows Upgrade doing automatic
upgrade software downloads? Some web pages literally lock up
until they have downloaded and displayed a new window. Do you
have Google's (or some other) Popup blocker enabled? If so,
the currently clicked on web page may just lock while waiting
for that blocked popup to load.

Just a few places to start collecting facts.

 

[Joe]

That's a hard one to diagnose because it could be hardware or software.
Based on what you were talking about I might try using the computer without
going on the internet to see if anything happens. I might try uninstalling
and reinstalling your network card drivers. I think the quickest way might
be to do a system restore to before this started happening. If it continues
to happen it might be hardware. Try going on the web using another browser
in the event that something happened with your current one.

Joe

 

[Mike DeStefano]

One thing I can tell you off the bat is Yes I am using the Yahoo popup
blocker, but that has been installed for several months with no problems.
I also am not doing any automatic windows updates and I have my virus scan
set to ask me if it is ok to download updates.

From what I have previously noticed, the entire machine locks up the mouse
is completely unresponsive and will not come back. It doesn't appear to
strictly related to the popup blocker, but I can certainly try removing it
and see what happens.

Is it possible, that it could be a driver issue, even though I have not
added any hardware?

 

[Chris]

Hello,

I am having a problem with a laptop running Windows XP professional. Over
the weekend I started to notice the machine completely freezing up to where
I would been to shut it down with the power button and then start it back up
with the power button. I have run adaware, and also spybot, as well as an
antivirus program and that has not helped. I have noticed but havent
completely narrowed it down to being connected to the internet. I would need
to remove my network cable and see if it happens to completely determine
that. What I have noticed is that the last few times its happened, it
happened while being connected to the internet or while bring up a webpage.

I no idea how to continue to diagnose this, or fix it. I have not installed
any new hardware, or software lately and the hard drive appears to be fine,
I have not received any messages or have had any problems booting up the
machine. The freezes do not seem to occur at any fixed amount of time.

Any help I can get is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

I had a similar problem on one PC. Like you, the freezes were unpredictable,
apparently random, and total! Also, it only appeared after some apparently
unconnected MS update was applied (now part of SP2).

Turned out to be caused by an IRQ conflict between the video card (NVIDIA TNC2)
and some other hardware (I think it was the sound card) using the same IRQ (Yes,
I know XP is *supposed* to be able to share IRQ's, but...)

Fortunately, I found that the BIOS was reserving an IRQ for a USB keyboard
(which I don't have) and disabling that in the BIOS freed the IRQ that the video
card then grabbed. That "fixed" the problem!

Chris.

 

[CS]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:13:53 -0400, "Mike DeStefano"

Mike:

It could be a hardware problem. Check to see if your laptop fan is
coming on and providing proper cooling. Laptops will overheat rather
fast if their internal cooling devices have failed for some reason.
You might also wish to run a memory test although bad memory will
generally cause the machine to reboot.

To eliminate any driver issues, run the laptop in safe mode and see if
the lockups occur.

Regards.

 

[w_tom]

Add the the list of things not yet reported (ie. Task
Manager and NETSTAT -A), a review of Event (system) log and
Device Manager. See Window's HELP if you don't know where
these are.

 

[Mike DeStefano]

OK I have an update from some things I tried last night.
Firstly, I removed all of the yahoo stuff (popup blocker and so forth). I
rebooted and several minutes later the lockup occured.

Second, I did a selective startup using msconfig and elimiminated process
system.ini, win ini, and startup items rebooted and several minuted later
the lockup occured.

Third, I booted in safemode with networking and the system ran with no
problems for several hours until I finally shut it down and booted up
normally. I then thought it was some kind of driver issue.

Forth, I then removed the network card from the device manager and let it
rerecognize it it ran successfully until I shut it down. I then booted up
normally and ran an IBM utility to update all of the drivers for that
particular IBM laptop and the machine ran successfully all night long.

I then thought the situation was fixed, I started up my firewall this
morning on that machine (the free version of ezarmor which I have been
running for several months with no issues and within minutes I was locked
up. I rebooted and turned off the firewall and so far it has worked
normally for about 4 hours.

 

[w_tom]

Interesting symptoms that demonstrate a need to review of
Event (system) log and Device Manager. Much work that may
have been answered up front in that previously posted and
short task list. Currently, you have symptoms that suggest
what may and may not be a solution. If those problems were
hard and clear, the system (event) log or Device Manager would
have reported it - in seconds. Note the list. Posted were
the first things one does to collect facts before wildly
changing things in a hope to cure the problem. Never start by
trying to cure the problem. Start by taking seconds to first
collect facts.

Put up the network and firewall to see what those historical
problem reporting tools may report. Certainly, you don't what
to run in Safe mode forever or use no firewall. You want to
fix the problem which is why you first want facts from Event
(system) log, Device Manager, and Task Manger.

I don't see where you had disabled or enables the firewall
that is default in XP.

 

[Chris]

Interesting symptoms that demonstrate a need to review of
Event (system) log and Device Manager. Much work that may
have been answered up front in that previously posted and
short task list.
.......

Trouble is...
It takes a (at least partially) working system to write to a log!

May not be relevant to this case, but in my case nothing was ever logged
anywhere. The PC used to just suddenly stop dead without any warning. 100%
totally locked up. I assumed that either the CPU had crashed or Windows had
seized completely, so no logging was possible.

I had no option but to try things "at random" in the hope of stumbling on a fix.
Eventually I did.

Chris.

 

[Mike DeStefano]

I can certainly take a look at the even log, but as far as the device
manager goes all hardward is accounted for and there are no question marks
or the dreaded exclaimation marks. Whatelse can I look for in the device
manager?

By the way, it locked up again last night, so its still happening just not
with the frequency that it was happening. In the short term thats good but
eventually a problem that goes away on its own will soon come back.

I will look at the event manager tonight as see if there are any entries.

Thanks
Mike

 

[w_tom]

With no special (yellow highlighted) entries in Device
Manager, then hardware is properly configured as far as
Windows is concerned.

If I remember correctly, you removed a third party firewall
to make system work. Are you using both that firewall and
Window's provided firewall?

Disable the NIC in Device Manager configuration and reboot
the system. Everything else would be used and tested by
Windows. No lockups would isolate problem to the NIC and
related software (ie. that third party firewall or
intermittent hardware problems in the NIC).

In the meantime, what did NETSTAT -A report. Do you run
the system with Task Manager on the desktop, so that tasks are
displayed when lockout occurs? These were important
information posted previously.

Failures that cause hard lockup can be reported before
problem occurs in event (system) log.

Is problem now isolated to the NIC subsystem? Then its time
to separate reasons for intermittent to software or hardware.
Computer manufacturer provides a comprehensive diagnostic to
confirm NIC integrity. If not, then get diagnostic from NIC
manufacturer. Last part of this test often finds
intermittents but requires another computer with NIC from same
NIC manufacturer.

Of course, systems always do strange things when power
supply voltage falls to a hairy edge. For example, PSU could
output excessive ripple voltage. Measure voltages with a 3.5
digit multimeter. Voltages must be in upper 3/4s of those
limits. If not, some computer components can act
intermittently.

One more powerful tool - a hairdryer on high heat. Every
component inside the computer must work just fine and execute
comprehensive diagnostic when heated directly by that
hairdryer. Any component that fails when heated is 100%
defective, can be a source of intermittent failure, and will
probably be failing even moreso in the future. Hairdryer can
selectively heat components when those components are tested
with a comprehensive diagnostic. Too many try to fix symptoms
(install more fans) rather then fix the reason for problem -
as exposed by using the hairdryer. Another tool that
viciously and effectively exposes intermittent failures.