XP Home "Beep Beeps" Then Freezes

D

Dick Sutton

Just in the last couple of weeks, a machine on our office lan has started
acting up. All machines (4 in number) are eMachines running XP Home. The
problem machine contains the files for the medical office s/w. Sometime
during the day, the system will 'beep' beep" then the screen saver will
freeze or the display will go blank. The funny thing is, the frontdesk
machine will continue working (accessing the database on the problem
machine). However, as soon as someone touches a key or moves the mouse on
the problem machine, it reboots and indicates that it has recovered from a
serious error.

So far I have done the following:

All macines have up to date software patches.
I have run SpyBot & Ad-Aware: no problems found.
Norton AV is up to date: no problems in scan.
I have run sfc /scannow: No problems.
I have disabled the 'sleep' (i.e. standby capability)
I have power options set to 'always on'

Does anyone have any ideas? These machines are only a few months old and
have been working perfectly until recently.

Dick
 
S

Servo

Dick said:
Just in the last couple of weeks, a machine on our office lan has started
acting up. All machines (4 in number) are eMachines running XP Home. The
problem machine contains the files for the medical office s/w. Sometime
during the day, the system will 'beep' beep" then the screen saver will
freeze or the display will go blank. The funny thing is, the frontdesk
machine will continue working (accessing the database on the problem
machine). However, as soon as someone touches a key or moves the mouse on
the problem machine, it reboots and indicates that it has recovered from a
serious error.

So far I have done the following:

All macines have up to date software patches.
I have run SpyBot & Ad-Aware: no problems found.
Norton AV is up to date: no problems in scan.
I have run sfc /scannow: No problems.
I have disabled the 'sleep' (i.e. standby capability)
I have power options set to 'always on'

Does anyone have any ideas? These machines are only a few months old and
have been working perfectly until recently.

Dick
Click to expand...

Dick,
I'm thinking that those 2 beeps seem to have something to do with the
video card. Try booting in safe mode, open the control panel and see if
there're any warnings on your video card. If not reboot and disable your
screensaver and see if the problem persists.


--
Servo @ work
God Bless Our Troops!
"Giggity, Giggity!"
Proud member of PETA-People Eating Tasty Animals
tservo100 at
ameritech dot net
Slow, fiery death to all spammers!!!
 
C

CWatters

Servo said:
Dick,
I'm thinking that those 2 beeps seem to have something to do with the
video card. Try booting in safe mode, open the control panel and see if
there're any warnings on your video card. If not reboot and disable your
screensaver and see if the problem persists.
Click to expand...

or possibly overheating? What does the manual say about the BIOS beeps?

Try sucking the dust out of the heatsinks and checking the fan speeds (also
the one on the video card if it's got one).
 
D

D.Currie

Dick Sutton said:
Just in the last couple of weeks, a machine on our office lan has started
acting up. All machines (4 in number) are eMachines running XP Home. The
problem machine contains the files for the medical office s/w. Sometime
during the day, the system will 'beep' beep" then the screen saver will
freeze or the display will go blank. The funny thing is, the frontdesk
machine will continue working (accessing the database on the problem
machine). However, as soon as someone touches a key or moves the mouse on
the problem machine, it reboots and indicates that it has recovered from a
serious error.

So far I have done the following:

All macines have up to date software patches.
I have run SpyBot & Ad-Aware: no problems found.
Norton AV is up to date: no problems in scan.
I have run sfc /scannow: No problems.
I have disabled the 'sleep' (i.e. standby capability)
I have power options set to 'always on'

Does anyone have any ideas? These machines are only a few months old and
have been working perfectly until recently.

Dick
Click to expand...

Check the event viewer to see if anything is recorded at the time of the
lockup/reboot. This sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't recall exactly what
was going on.

Normally I'd say it's a hardware problem, but maybe not this time.

If it is hardware-related, it might be time to see how good that e-machines
technical support and warranty are. Make sure you've got backups of
everything you need that's on the computer, because there's a good chance
they will tell you to use their recovery CDs to send you back to the
beginning.
 
D

Dick Sutton

Servo,
No warnings on the video card. I will try the screensaver, but it is the
standard Microsoft 'flowers' screen saver.

Thanks for the input.

Dick
 
D

Dick Sutton

CWaters,
I'm thinking that it may be heat, too. I'll try some extra cooling this
weekend and see if it still randomly fails.

I'll post back.
Thanks for the advice...
Dick
 
M

Malke

D.Currie said:
Check the event viewer to see if anything is recorded at the time of
the lockup/reboot. This sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't recall
exactly what was going on.

Normally I'd say it's a hardware problem, but maybe not this time.

If it is hardware-related, it might be time to see how good that
e-machines technical support and warranty are. Make sure you've got
backups of everything you need that's on the computer, because there's
a good chance they will tell you to use their recovery CDs to send you
back to the beginning.
Click to expand...

Test the RAM. eMachines are not particularly good computers and I've had
several belonging to a client where the machines would just freeze up
and it was the RAM. An eMachine would not be my first choice for an
office and certainly not for a database server.

Malke
 
P

Pentium

Yes .. my first impression was RAM ...also, has the OP done a DEFRAG I
wonder?, but first, has he cleaned out the cache and temp files? "beep
beep" usually means too much going on for the system to think. At least
it's not in POST.
 
D

Dick Sutton

Pentium,

I haven't done a defrag in about 2 months (I'll do that this weekend). I do
clean out the temp files every week.

I haven't cleaned the cache. How do I do that?

Dick
 
P

Pentium

Get these free programs and run them after you reboot.

CCLEANER : http://www.ccleaner.com/ This baby removes all temp cache, and
other indexing crap on boot-up ... go into "options" and check off "at boot"
This stuff is probably clogging your system too
 
D

Dick Sutton

Thanks to all who have responded. I'll be working on this this weekend.
I'll post an update.

Thanks again...

Dick
 
K

Kelly

Without reading through this entire thread:

I have seen this on many systems brought it here for AOL users. If this
isn't the case:

Use one of these three options.

Right Click the My Computer Icon/Properties/Advanced/
Performance/Settings/Advanced/Change.

1. Set Page File to 0, ok your way out and reboot. Then follow the same
procedure and reset the Page File to System Managed File.

2. No Page File. Reboot. Then delete C:\Pagefile.Sys then revert the page
file setting.

3. Set the swap file size to zero, reboot. Re-set to System Managed,
reboot. Reset the Custom setting, reboot.

You Receive a "System Has Recovered from a Serious Error" Message After
Every Restart
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q317277

Windows XP Problems if Your Profile Is Damaged
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q326688

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

In memory of those lost during Katrina &
Prayers and Hope for the remaining displaced.
 
C

CWatters

Dick Sutton said:
CWaters,
I'm thinking that it may be heat, too. I'll try some extra cooling this
weekend and see if it still randomly fails.
Click to expand...

I found the fan on my CPU looked ok but if you looked carefully the heatsink
fins below it were full of dust and blocked. Hard to see without a torch as
both dust and aluminium are a similar colour :)
 
D

Dick Sutton

Thanks Kelly,

I'll be working on this issue this afternoon and will follow your advice.
I'll post back my results.

Thanks again...

Dick
 

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