Random System Freezes-Vista

[Robert Miles]

Sounds more like a video hardware problem than the HDD or BIOS. Is it
on-board video, or an add-in card? Try updating the video drivers- from
HP's site if it's on-board, card manufacturer if it's an add-in.

Try setting your quality/performance settings in the video control panel
more to performance than quality and see what happens. Download and run
something like HWMonitor ( http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php ) and track
the GPU temps for a while. They can be quite high under load. Once you
find out the type and model of video, you can Google what the temperature
range should be. Might as well clean out the inside of the PC case while
you're at it, making sure the heatsinks and fans are clean of dust, hair,
etc.

SC Tom

I'd suspect one of the recent Vista updates instead - I'm seeing a similar
problem
both on my 64-bit Vista machine, where I'm using the GPU card nearly full
time
to run the GPUGRID BOINC project, and on my 32-bit Vista machine, where
the GPU is too old for GPUGRID to use it so I'm barely using it for anything
that's heavy on it. One thing I've noted to that the problems tend to start
when
more that about 50% of the physical memory is in use, and most of the
programs
running use 32-bit mode instead of 64-bit mode (of course, the 32-bit Vista
machine can run only 32-bit mode programs).

My 32-bit machine probably uses an on-board video with a driver provided
by Microsoft or HP; the 64-bit machine uses an add-in card that I bought
from
HP along with the machine, and an Nvidia driver recommended by GPUGRID.

Telling BOINC that it isn't allowed to use more than 40% of the physical
memory helps, but does not eliminate the problem entirely.

Robert Miles

 

[Chuck]

- -"HD activity stops this
particular file was being read/written to."- -

Possible file corruption, or a bad/marginal area on the HD.

If the file is much larger than any of the others, it's also possible (but
unlikely) that the HD electronics are questionable.
SATA cables and connectors can have a failure mode that closely matches your
symptoms. This is usually related to vibration, temperature, and poor
contact due to crud on the connector pins and sockets. High relative
humidity seems to aggravate such problems. "Golden Grain" can be used to
clean such connectors and pins. If all else fails, GG over rocks with water
or Coke may improve your outlook.

When a drive has a marginal area, the drive may recalibrate, and then be
able to read an additional part or all of the file in question.
About all you can do is try and get a duplicate good copy of the file in
another disk area.
An occasional defrag can help prevent some of the issues that might have
caused your problem.

Once you have known good backups, a Mfrs disk utility may help you to either
identify good and bad portions of the drive, or even possibly recover the
area that is misbehaving.

Old, Retired, Worn Out MVP (2004 to the "dark ages" of win 3.1)