Random Lockup / Freezes for 4 months now... help!

[smhyde]

Hi everyone. I hope someone can help me solve my PC problem . (I was
going to use this problem as my excuse to build a Duo Core 2 PC, but
now that I priced everything out I think I want to try a little
harder to fix my problem - sticker shock!)

My system has started to “freeze” randomly about two or three times
per day. This has been going on for about 4 months now. There are
no errors and nothing is reported in the event viewer logs. It does
not seem to matter what I am doing, but the more complicated of a
task my computer is performing the more likely I am to experience the
freeze. (Playing a video or burning a DVD is more likely to cause a
freeze than simply using the web or typing in MS Word). I don't
think heat is the issue because if I take the side panel off the PC,
I get the same problems as with the PC closed up (not sure if that's
a sufficient test case or not - you all let me know).

When the freeze happens, the only thing I can do is warm boot the
computer using the reset button on the case. When the computer
“freezes” it’s like a snapshot in time. All input devices stop
working and sound stops. Hard drives stop responding and network
access quits operating (I know this because another computer had a
mapped network drive to this PC, and when the PC froze, the mapped
network drive stopped responding too). The funny thing is that video
keeps displaying a snapshot of what I was doing when the freeze
occurred. The worst “freeze” caused both of the drives in my RAID-1
array to be corrupted in different ways. I initially thought one of
my drives had gone bad so I bought two new Western Digital 250GB SATA
drives and rebuilt the software installations from scratch on the new
drives. To my chagrin, the lockups have continued.

Very rarely, on a cold boot, the PC doesn’t make it through the “early
chipset initialization” and sometimes locks up on the “memory check”.
(My motherboard has status lights that tell you where it is in the
initialization process).

So far I’ve (1) Replaced two of the hard drives (2) run Memtest 86 3.2
and passed (2) tried changing out the memory even though Memtest
passed (3) rebuilt the Windows OS from scratch.

Is there any way to figure out what is wrong here short of just
replacing parts until the problem goes away? I’m starting to suspect
that the Motherboard is going bad (but I guess it could the the
processor or video card too, right?). I’d love to use this as an
excuse to build a nice Core 2 Duo PC, but I'd rather not spend the
money right now if I can fix what I have. This computer is plenty
fast for what I do.

My system:
MSI KT6 Delta MS6590 Motherboard
AMD Athalon XP-2600+ (2GHz)
NVIDA GeForce FX5200
512M RAM
Built in CMedia Audio
Built in Gigabit Ethernet
(2) Western Digital 250GB SATA drives on RAID-1 (internal
to MB)
(1) Western Digital 80GB EIDE drive
Memorex DVD R/W
Toshiba DVD-ROM
Floppy Drive
Bluetooth Adapter
Logitech Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
Windows XP Professional SP2

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Dave]

Hi everyone. I hope someone can help me solve my PC problem . (I was
going to use this problem as my excuse to build a Duo Core 2 PC, but
now that I priced everything out I think I want to try a little
harder to fix my problem - sticker shock!)

My system has started to “freeze” randomly about two or three times
per day. This has been going on for about 4 months now. There are
no errors and nothing is reported in the event viewer logs. It does
not seem to matter what I am doing, but the more complicated of a
task my computer is performing the more likely I am to experience the
freeze. (Playing a video or burning a DVD is more likely to cause a
freeze than simply using the web or typing in MS Word).

Your power supply is failing

 

[KC Computers]

My system has started to “freeze” randomly about two or three times

per day. This has been going on for about 4 months now. There are
no errors and nothing is reported in the event viewer logs. It does
not seem to matter what I am doing, but the more complicated of a
task my computer is performing the more likely I am to experience the
freeze. (Playing a video or burning a DVD is more likely to cause a
freeze than simply using the web or typing in MS Word). I don't
think heat is the issue because if I take the side panel off the PC,
I get the same problems as with the PC closed up (not sure if that's
a sufficient test case or not - you all let me know).

When the freeze happens, the only thing I can do is warm boot the
computer using the reset button on the case. When the computer
“freezes” it’s like a snapshot in time. All input devices stop
working and sound stops. Hard drives stop responding and network
access quits operating (I know this because another computer had a
mapped network drive to this PC, and when the PC froze, the mapped
network drive stopped responding too). The funny thing is that video
keeps displaying a snapshot of what I was doing when the freeze
Very rarely, on a cold boot, the PC doesn’t make it through the “early
chipset initialization” and sometimes locks up on the “memory check”.
(My motherboard has status lights that tell you where it is in the
initialization process).
So far I’ve (1) Replaced two of the hard drives (2) run Memtest 86 3.2
and passed (2) tried changing out the memory even though Memtest
passed (3) rebuilt the Windows OS from scratch.

From our experience building and repairing computers, it sounds like a bad
motherboard or power supply. Most likely, the motherboard is to blame
but you could first try a different power supply.

Good luck.

 

[DaveW]

It does indeed sound like a component on your motherboard is failing. I
believe replacing the motherboard would solve the problem.

 

[Paul]

Hi everyone. I hope someone can help me solve my PC problem . (I was
going to use this problem as my excuse to build a Duo Core 2 PC, but
now that I priced everything out I think I want to try a little
harder to fix my problem - sticker shock!)

My system has started to ?freeze? randomly about two or three times
per day. This has been going on for about 4 months now. There are
no errors and nothing is reported in the event viewer logs. It does
not seem to matter what I am doing, but the more complicated of a
task my computer is performing the more likely I am to experience the
freeze. (Playing a video or burning a DVD is more likely to cause a
freeze than simply using the web or typing in MS Word). I don't
think heat is the issue because if I take the side panel off the PC,
I get the same problems as with the PC closed up (not sure if that's
a sufficient test case or not - you all let me know).

When the freeze happens, the only thing I can do is warm boot the
computer using the reset button on the case. When the computer
?freezes? it?s like a snapshot in time. All input devices stop
working and sound stops. Hard drives stop responding and network
access quits operating (I know this because another computer had a
mapped network drive to this PC, and when the PC froze, the mapped
network drive stopped responding too). The funny thing is that video
keeps displaying a snapshot of what I was doing when the freeze
occurred. The worst ?freeze? caused both of the drives in my RAID-1
array to be corrupted in different ways. I initially thought one of
my drives had gone bad so I bought two new Western Digital 250GB SATA
drives and rebuilt the software installations from scratch on the new
drives. To my chagrin, the lockups have continued.

Very rarely, on a cold boot, the PC doesn?t make it through the ?early
chipset initialization? and sometimes locks up on the ?memory check?.
(My motherboard has status lights that tell you where it is in the
initialization process).

So far I?ve (1) Replaced two of the hard drives (2) run Memtest 86 3.2
and passed (2) tried changing out the memory even though Memtest
passed (3) rebuilt the Windows OS from scratch.

Is there any way to figure out what is wrong here short of just
replacing parts until the problem goes away? I?m starting to suspect
that the Motherboard is going bad (but I guess it could the the
processor or video card too, right?). I?d love to use this as an
excuse to build a nice Core 2 Duo PC, but I'd rather not spend the
money right now if I can fix what I have. This computer is plenty
fast for what I do.

My system:
MSI KT6 Delta MS6590 Motherboard
AMD Athalon XP-2600+ (2GHz)
NVIDA GeForce FX5200
512M RAM
Built in CMedia Audio
Built in Gigabit Ethernet
(2) Western Digital 250GB SATA drives on RAID-1 (internal
to MB)
(1) Western Digital 80GB EIDE drive
Memorex DVD R/W
Toshiba DVD-ROM
Floppy Drive
Bluetooth Adapter
Logitech Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
Windows XP Professional SP2

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Freezing is a peculiar kind of fault, compared to BSOD/crash or
reset/reboot. Freezing can be caused by things like driver problems
(a certain Ethernet chip and driver being an example in the last
couple years). If the OS gets stuck in a loop for some reason,
that can look like a freeze.

Freezing is hard to debug, and can require a lot of test cases.
Simplifying the setup, by removing certain suspicious devices,
might help. Replace keyboard and mouse with a PS/2 setup.
Disconnect the Bluetooth adapter. Uninstall any burner software
you might be using. Those are the ones that come to mind. I'd
like to suggest uninstalling antivirus software as well, but that
would do more harm than good (some antivirus software is quite
resistant to uninstallation, and uninstalling only makes a mess).

Using a spare disk, and doing a clean install, can give you a
baseline to work with. If the system won't freeze, with a
minimal OS install and no fancy programs in place (like burner
software), then you can start looking in the software direction.

For hardware, you would need to collect a whole bunch of test
results, and compare symptoms from the tests, to see if there
is a common theme. I'll give just one example, so I won't annoy
you. Give 3DMark2001SE Build330 a try. It has a demo mode and
a tick box will cause the demo mode to loop forever. The demo
mode has sound output. It is a good workout of video, sound,
and processor. It probably won't make the system run too hot.

http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark2001/

Does the system freeze when the demo loop is running ? Is
the sound card still sending sound to the speakers after
a freeze ? If the sound is dead, then the system bus could
be hung. At which point I might swap out the motherboard.

(The video card continues to display a snapshot of what you
were doing, because the frame buffer on the video card has
a copy of the entire desktop window. The logic on the video
card continues to read out of the frame buffer and paint
the screen, with no intervention needed.)

This thread suggests there is a Vlink voltage setting, and
maybe you can play with that.

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.c..._frm/thread/c59e9715c8fa77ec/7d30d5cf0302e1bc

Paul