Computer lock up, unknown problem

[azntiger0586]

- me and my friend have the same computer setup. only thing different is the ram and the hard drive. My friends comp is running fine without problems.

- however, my computer locks up randomlly at any time. It can be 20 mins after bootup, or 16 hours later, whenever.

- i bought new rams to see if the problem would be fixed, but it still freezes.

- tried reinstalling xp and it still freezes.

- running latest bios and drivers, etc. still freezes.

- is it possible the hard drive is messed up? please help. many thanks.

 

[azntiger0586]

-ran an error disk check and found no errors.

-disabled fast write and still freezes.

- anyone?? bad harddrive maybe??

 

[EeyoreX]

My first supician would be bad RAM. But you already replaced your RAM, so then that probably isn't it. I would put the hard drive toward the bottom of my suspect list. The next thing I would check is the power supply. I would also look into my CPU temps (though this is less likely since you have a wide range of times between lockups, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes hours). I still lean toward a memory problem. Try running memtest for a few hours. As I said, it's probably not your RAM, but it may be the memory slots on your motherboard. Try moving the RAM to different slots, see if that eliminates the problem.

Order in which I would check things:

memtest to determine if memory slots could be the problem. Memory problems cause problems just like your sysmtoms.
PSU. A bad/flakey PSU can cause problems.
Check CPU temps. If you are overheating, that could cause random lockups.

\Dan

 

[RustyNale]

EeyoreX pretty much covered it, only thing I could possibly add is...looks like you've oc'd your video card, how hard are you pushing it and did you upgrade the cooling on it? ( I know it's stretching, only thing I could think of to add )

 

[fslove]

Overclocking of either you video card or CPU will give you the syptoms you are experiencing so I would try setting your CPU to the default setting and if that doesn't work reflashing your video card back to the correct firmware.

 

[azntiger0586]

thanks alot for the many responses.

- it cant be heat because i have 3 case fans in the case, one bloeing in from ffront, 1 blowing in from the side, and 1 blowing out in the back.

- power supply i think is fine, like i said me and my friend have the same setup, he uses antec 350 and i use antec 450.

- video card is running at defaults speed, no more o/c, but still freezes.

- i disabled fastwrite, still freezes.

i will run memtest as soon as i get home, about how long do u reccomend me to run it? (memtest is the one that boots up in dos am i correct?)

many thanks all.

 

[newbiepcuser]

In my experiences, MSI are hit or misses for motherboard. There is a chance that your motherboard is flaking out.

 

[RustyNale]

Run memtest over night, the longer you run it the more thorough a job it does.

 

[sd]

How did it work out? I'm having a similar problem and have checked a lot of the same things.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: newbiepcuser
In my experiences, MSI are hit or misses for motherboard. There is a chance that your motherboard is flaking out.

I've only had 1 out of around 200 MSI boards ever have problem on me. It is possible it's the board, but the same possibility holds true with any brand. why msi came up I dunno, looks like you have a soyo board.

ATI 9800 Non-Pro (flashed to pro) 410/360 <-- is likely the problem, some of these don't work quite right when flashed, have you tried going back to the original prom data?

if you have doubts about your hard drive, dl maxtor's maxblaster software and run a thorough test on the drive.

try running it with just 1 dimm at a time and see if it's a problem with the memory controller and/or memory...(I've found memtest to be somewhat of a let down, it works on finding many problems but misses others)