XP Freezes

[Guest]

Just had a Windows XP Home system restore because of corruption. Ever since I
got it home it keeps freezing. It freezes at least once an hour during any
operation, ie. internet, outlook email, documents, etc... It completely
freezes, no mouse, no keyboard, no ctrl+alt+del.....nothing! I have to shut
down the whole computer and then restart it manually......upon start-up each
time there is no scan disk.

What could be the problem?!?!?

Thanks for any help!!!

 

[Alias]

Just had a Windows XP Home system restore because of corruption. Ever since I
got it home it keeps freezing. It freezes at least once an hour during any
operation, ie. internet, outlook email, documents, etc... It completely
freezes, no mouse, no keyboard, no ctrl+alt+del.....nothing! I have to shut
down the whole computer and then restart it manually......upon start-up each
time there is no scan disk.

What could be the problem?!?!?

Thanks for any help!!!

Can you take it back to the place where you had it "restored" and ask
them to take a look?

Alias

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Alison, it totally depends on how the Operating System was restored; if
it was completely restored (i.e. drive formatted and the operating
system reloaded), repaired (no formatting, just replacing system files),
or Windows restored (Windows System Restore).

Normally if your system was completely restored and you are still
experiencing issues with lockups, it could be faulty hardware.
Lockups/freezes can be caused by numerous of things; faulty drivers,
faulty hardware, memory leaks from corrupt software, spyware/malware,
etc.

Please give us a little more details as to the original problem (why you
had it reloaded) and what has happened since. That way we can better
help you.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response! It all started when I took the hard drive to Geek
Squad to repair or replace my optical drives which were both not working.
They did a diagnostic and found both drives were bad and that my Win XP was
"corrupted". They suggested a full windows restore. They first restored my
original Win 98 and then restored my Win XP Home Upgrade. All files were
backed up to Seagate External Hard Drive. I brought it home and installed a
new external CD/DVD Drive and a Wireless Router. All installs went well. Now
it keeps freezing up.....I had to reboot 3 times just to write this reply
because of freezing up.

 

[ANONYMOUS]

It could be that XP is now trying to update itself online. After
installing XP you have to autoupdate it so that new Windows security
patches are installed.

Does his happen when you are online or offline?

hth

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

To clarify, the tested both optical drives and found them not working?
Did both optical drive stop working at the same time? If so, this is
highly improbable. The common relationship with both drives is the
motherboard. If both drives stopped working at the same drive, this
would more than likely be caused by a motherboard issue; which could
explain your lockups as well.

As far as your reload, did you provide them with *your* Windows 98 disc
and *your* Windows XP disc or did they use theirs? This is an unrelated
question to your problem, but I am just interested.

--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Guest]

I did have the motherboard replaced about two years ago......everything was
working fine until recently. Both the CD and the DVD drive have been giving
us problems for a while.....sometimes they read and loaded the discs and
sometimes they didn't. We purchased a wireless router and I went to do the
install and the CD Rom drive would not read the disc at all and that is when
we brought it in for repair. They checked the motherboard and said it was
fine.

As for the restore......I provided them with my HP System Restore Disc
(win98 was pre-installed when I purchased computer) and I also provided them
with my Win XP Home Upgrade Poduct Key.....they used their own disc. I had
the Win XP disc but they said all they needed was the Product Key.

 

[Guest]

It happens usually online (internet and Outlook email). It has frozen also
while using Microsoft Works and when the computer is idle.

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Alison, as stated earlier, it could be anything. I do not think it is
software related (spyware, viruses, etc.), since it was just reloaded.
Did they disconnect the two optical drive from your system. If they are
on the same IDE cable (which is usually the case), one could cause the
other to malfunction. I would have the ribbon cable checked as well. If
they left your drives connected, you could try unplugging them from the
motherboard and see if that corrects the issue.

Did they give you an explanation of the windows problem, or did they
just say it was corrupt?

--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[Guest]

Michael,

They already disconnected the ribbon cable.....I know this because they did
that in front of me.

As for the windows.....all they said was "corrupt".....maybe I should have
gotten a second opinion.....20/20 hindsight! I know it's not
spyware/virus.....I've done a few full system scans and came up with
nothing......I've also checked microsoft for critical updates and also
nothing.

Maybe I will have to return it to Geek Squad and try to get them to diagnose
again.

Thanks for all your help and input!

I greatly appreciate it!

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Can you humor me for a bit and try something. Can you access your Device
Manager and check to see if you have any yellow exclamation marks on any
installed device? You can access the Device Manager by right clicking on
My Computer and selecting Manage. Or by accessing the control panel.

If there are no yellow exclamation marks, you would be better served
taking it back to them for further diagnosis. Please insist on this
being free. The issues are not resolved after their "fix". I would hate
to see you spend money on further diagnosis.

--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[ANONYMOUS]

OK try this and let us know what happens.

1) Start your system and launch Internet Explorer or Outlook;
2) When you see the computer has frozen, just disconnect the modem or
lan by unpluging the cable - BUT keep the system running;
3) wait and see what messages you get on the screen - it may take some
time but wait for some activity;
4) when the system is back to normal (or appears back to normal).
plug/connect in your modem cable or lan cable and see whether it freezes
again. you may need to start the modem by going into START, CONNECT to
and select your ISP/modem connection. Lan should connect automatically.

Let us know exactly what happens so that a solution can be given.

hth

 

[Guest]

No yellow exclamation marks on any devices. I'll try calling them and see if
I can get a house call.

Thanks so much again for all your help!!! I'll let you know what happens.

 

[Guest]

I'll try that and let you know what happens! Thanks!

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Please keep us informed as to the problem and solution. You can email me
at (e-mail address removed)


--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[caver1]

I did have the motherboard replaced about two years ago......everything was
working fine until recently. Both the CD and the DVD drive have been giving
us problems for a while.....sometimes they read and loaded the discs and
sometimes they didn't. We purchased a wireless router and I went to do the
install and the CD Rom drive would not read the disc at all and that is when
we brought it in for repair. They checked the motherboard and said it was
fine.

As for the restore......I provided them with my HP System Restore Disc
(win98 was pre-installed when I purchased computer) and I also provided them
with my Win XP Home Upgrade Poduct Key.....they used their own disc. I had
the Win XP disc but they said all they needed was the Product Key.

I had the same type of problem on my Dell. Both opticals quit working.
Dell sent a tech out he changed both drives out and still no optical
drives working. So he called in and they told him to check a couple of
entries in the registry and change them. It worked the tech said that
was a new one for him as he had never heard of that before. So you might
want to check with HP. Sorry but I do not know what he changed in the
registry.

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

AWWWWW. I forgot about that! Thanks Caver1... I have seen this before.
Here are my notes concerning the issue. HOWEVER, I only used this when
the optical drives were not shown in My Computer. But for anyone who is
experiencing that specific issue, here are my notes:

Click Start, then Run, then enter REGEDIT to open the Registry Editor

Navigate to the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class entry

Under the Class entry, double click on
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

In the right-hand pane, click ONCE to select the UpperFilters entry

Make sure the UpperFilters entry is highlighted, press Delete, then Yes.

In the right-hand pane, click ONCE to select the LowerFilters entry

Make sure the LowerFilters entry is highlighted, press Delete, then Yes.

Close the Registry Editor by clicking File, Exit.

--
Michael D. Alligood,
MCSA, MCDST, MCP, A+,
Network+, i-Net+, CIW Assoc.,
CIW Certified Instructor

 

[NoStop]

This looks to be remarkably similar to an issue I'm pursuing.

I've just reformatted the disk, and installed a fresh copy of Windows XP
Home SP2. The PC still freezes (this has been an issue for quite some
time). There seems to be a regular pair of events in the System event log
that accompanies such a freeze:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ACPI
Event ID: 5
Description:
AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal IO port address
(0xcf8), which lies in the 0xcf8 - 0xcff protected address range. This
could lead to system instability. Please contact your vendor for technical
assistance.

The other is the corresponding 'read' event.

The corresponding link to Microsoft's site gives the following
information:

*********************
Product: Windows Operating System
Event ID: 5
Source: ACPI
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: ACPI_ERR_AMLI_ILLEGAL_IO_WRITE_FATAL
Message: %2: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal IO port
address (%3), which lies in the %4 protected range. This could lead to
system instability, etc.

Explanation

The system BIOS attempted to incorrectly access hardware resources
concurrently with the operating system. This type of access cannot be
synchronised and can cause system instability.


User Action

Contact the system vendor for an updated BIOS and follow the vendor's
instructions for installation.

*********************

I cannot seem to find a suitable BIOS update, but am awaiting a response
from the system vendor.

However, following a comment in another forum, I changed the Plug and Play
Operating System setting in the BIOS to No/False. This setting is
recommended in a Microsoft article
(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/314068) anyway. Following
that, I was able to run the PC for a good couple of hours as it downloaded
and installed a large amount of updates from Microsoft Update. It hasn't
frozen since, but as that was only last night, I can't be certain of
success yet. However, prior to that, the PC was freezing so frequently as
to be unusable; it was freezing pretty much immediately on trying to run
updates from Microsoft Update, and also trying to install an update from
another site, so there has been a definite improvement.

John,

Try turning off any power management settings you have in your BIOS and let
the o/s handle them.

Cheers.




--
Linux is ready for the desktop! More ready than Windoze XP.
http://tinyurl.com/ldm9d

"Computer users around the globe recognize that the most serious threats to
security exist because of inherent weaknesses in the Microsoft operating
system." McAfee

 

[Guest]

Reading through these pages, it's amazing how many people have similar
problems with XP freezing!
When it happens to me, it's usually when booting up or just after. Outlook
appears to habe a major effect too. When it freezes nothing responds at all,
not even cntl+alt+del...!
I have tried many of the ideas suggested here, chkdsk, memtest, pcpitstop
etc, and am now thinking I may need to update some drivers.
Can someobe tell me how to do this please? I assume it is done through
device manager, but when I select 'update driver' I always get the message
'unable to find a newer driver etc etc' Is the internet searched
automatically or do I need to download the new drivers first and then tell DV
where to find them?

Incidentally, under usb devices I have about twenty entries - how do I find
out which are which? I only have about 15 usb ports so some of them must be
dead ends?