Blue said:
My PC constantly freezes up and locks up sometimes even with no other
programs running, when restarting.. takes multiple reboots to get the
machine up in regular mode.... never goes into checkdisk mode when
reset button is hit.. or very rarely.. and when it does it says there
are no disk errors.. and when it does checkdisk.. it only checks the
D: drive and does not check C: drive... the time time frame that it
takes to freeze up is sporadic.. sometimes within five minutes..
sometimes after a half to an hour... besides
wiping and reinstalling XP is there anything else that I can do to
resolve the problem or even find what the problem may be?
any help is appreciated...
From your description of the problem, you have hardware failure. If that
is the case, reinstalling Windows (software solution) will be useless.
Here are general hardware troubleshooting steps. I would start by
swapping out your power supply.
1) Open the computer and run it open, cleaning out all dust bunnies and
observing all fans (overheating will cause system freezing). Obviously
you can't do this with a laptop, but you can hear if the fan is running
and feel if the laptop is getting too hot.
2) Test the RAM - I like Memtest86+ from
www.memtest.org. Obviously, you
have to get the program from a working machine. You will either
download the precompiled Windows binary to make a bootable floppy or
the .iso to make a bootable cd. If you want to use the latter, you'll
need to have third-party burning software on the machine where you
download the file - XP's built-in burning capability won't do the job.
In either case, boot with the media you made. The test will run
immediately. Let the test run for an hour or two - unless errors are
seen immediately. If you get any errors, replace the RAM.
3) Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from the mftr. Download
the file and make a bootable floppy or cd with it. Boot with the media
and do a thorough test. If the drive has physical errors, replace it.
4) The power supply may be going bad or be inadequate for the devices
you have in the system. The adequacy issue doesn't really apply to a
laptop, although of course the power supply can be faulty.
5) Test the motherboard with something like TuffTest from
www.tufftest.com. Sometimes this is useful, and sometimes it isn't.
Testing hardware failures often involves swapping out suspected parts
with known-good parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are
uncomfortable opening your computer, take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop (not your local equivalent of BigStoreUSA).
Malke
