Windows Randomly freezes

[thecrecarc]

Around a month ago, my comp had trouble booting. so i replaced the PSU, and all seemed well.

until now. this started to happen yesterday. it started to randomly freeze. at first, it froze every hour or so. now it happens every few minutes. i have to press the restart button.

Also, when i press the restart button, it doesnt boot. it freezes in post at the "detecting IDE drives" part. the hardrive light reamins red, i have to shut down my computer, and turn it back on, simply restarting doesnt work.

i tried virus scanning yesterday, and spyware (back when it froze olny every few hours or so). nada. also, checkdisk gave no errors.

unfortunatly, i cant even run virus scan now, cause it freezes every few minutes, forcing me to shut down my comp. im outta ideas. help?

 

[Tsuwamono]

Thats windows... that isnt a glitch... thats just bill gates doing what he does..

 

[SlitheryDee]

Sounds like it could be a heat issue. Are you overclocking?

 

[thecrecarc]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee
Sounds like it could be a heat issue. Are you overclocking?

nope. check the temps, and its around 38 idle, and um... dunno how much it is at load cause it freezes too often for me to find out. the hottest ive seen it was 42

 

[thecrecarc]

no tips?

 

[Powermoloch]

well you can download the following programs and still be able to check your temperature:

Memtest86+
Prime95
SuperPi

 

[thecrecarc]

Originally posted by: Powermoloch
well you can download the following programs and still be able to check your temperature:

Memtest86+
Prime95
SuperPi

already got those programs (well, all but superpi)

the probrem is.... my comp freezes every few minutes or so, maknig it hard to test it.

thats y i dunno the load temp. i highly doubt it matters, cause sometimes my comp freezes donig easy things, like browsing the web.

 

[Powermoloch]

Can ya list down the specs ?

 

[thecrecarc]

amd xp 2200
ati 9200 128mb
512mb ram
WD 40gb hdd
aopen ak79g-vn mobo.

i think that covers it. need anything else, just ask. this probrem is seriously getting annoying. i cant do anything with its constant freezing.

 

[w00t]

did you boot into safe mode when you scanned? make sure your av is updated

 

[Slugbait]

Check the videocard fan. Try to spin it with your finger. If it's stiff (or frozen), there's your culprit.

 

[thecrecarc]

when i ran the Virus scan, it was in norm windows mode. and yes, its updated. of course, when i ran the scan, it was when it froze every hour or so, not every few minutes, like now.

safe mode freezes too IIRC, ill check later

its a passive, no-fan Video card

 

[SlitheryDee]

Just a thought, but have you tried resetting your CMOS? As mentioned check to see if you're video card fan is spinning when the computer is turned on. If you have a chipset fan on the MB check it too.

I hate to say it but you might need to be checking your motherboard for swollen or leaking capacitors as well.

 

[thecrecarc]

hm.. this is REALLY strange

now, my comp works fine. i started it (in normal mode, not safe), and its working for 30 min now. ill run prime95, to stress it. ill check the temps too.

what the max temp a amd xp can handle?

Edit: prime95'd for 45min and it froze, cpu temp was 58.5

 

[bfonnes]

Originally posted by: thecrecarc
amd xp 2200
ati 9200 128mb
512mb ram
WD 40gb hdd
aopen ak79g-vn mobo.

i think that covers it. need anything else, just ask. this probrem is seriously getting annoying. i cant do anything with its constant freezing.

If you continue to have problems the easiest thing to do would be to get a new Hard disk drive before this one fails and write all your data to it...

Despite what everyone else is saying, I believe they're just guessing. All the symptoms you've described point to a hard drive issue. If you want to try to rescue that drive then back it up and use a Western Digital utility to write zeroes to the drive... That would eliminate the problem of a possible virus. Or just buy a new one... This one is SATA interface (check your system to see if you need SATA or IDE)

clearing the cmos isn't a bad idea... this involves moving a jumper on your mainboard as it will explain in the instruction manual... If both clearing the CMOS and/or reinstalling a fresh copy of windows onto a new drive doesn't help, then it is most likely a main board issue. You could even try using a can of compressed air and spraying all the dust out from everything (heatsinks, fans, drives, main board, etc.)

BFonnes

 

[thecrecarc]

thanks bfonnes, ill try the cmos. is it really my harddrive?

i did a prime95, and it froze after 45 minutes. the max temp i saw was around 58.5 celcius for the cpu. is that high? it seems pretty high to me.


EDIT: ok, i doubt its the temp. i just froze twice, and the temps were only 40.

 

[bfonnes]

Originally posted by: thecrecarc
thanks bfonnes, ill try the cmos. is it really my harddrive?

i did a prime95, and it froze after 45 minutes. the max temp i saw was around 58.5 celcius for the cpu. is that high? it seems pretty high to me.


EDIT: ok, i doubt its the temp. i just froze twice, and the temps were only 40.

yes, 58.5 celcius, that is high (assuming that is your CPU temp), if your temps are actually that high, then it is most likely your temps, but you said before that they were fine. One thing you should know is that the reading from your motherboard software is not always accurate (sometimes they read low). It depends on where they place the diode on the motherboard and which diode that it actually reads. Anyhow, if your temps are really that high, then that should be your first priority. If you have a general problem with heat in your system, then it is possible that your hard drive could be overheating as well... That is pretty rare, though, unless you are overclocking. There are utilities that can measure that as well. Although, I fail to remember what some of the names of those are right now. There are various other softwares that will read the temps of the different parts of your system as well.

The main issue in heat problems is usually the CPU and not having proper cooling or thermal solution. Tell us what fixed it if/when you get it working...

BFonnes

 

[Slammy1]

Well, this is just a shot but try disabling your NIC.

 

[thecrecarc]

well, im clueless right now, could be my temps, or my mobo, or my hardrive. or even my video card. so... basically, i have no idea whats wrong.

how do u disable nic? what are NIC anywho?

 

[Slammy1]

Network Interface Card. You can disable it through control panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager. It's something easy to check. You did fail Prime95, makes you wonder why. Temps are high, very high, but I don't think it's oos (see previous note on the inaccuracies of those numbers). I'd clean out your system with some compressed air, maybe even reseat the HSF if it's still an issue.

 

[bfonnes]

Originally posted by: Slammy1
Well, this is just a shot but try disabling your NIC.

lol, slammy, did you do Gateway tech support, too?? I had one one time where we couldn't install windows on it, then when we took out the NIC it worked flawlessly... You normally don't need to disable your NIC... but, it couldn't hurt to just try the system with a barebones config just in case ( only your mainboard, memory, power supply, video card in the machine). If your system were to have problems at that point then it's not a windows issue, because you have no hard drive in the machine. Best advice I can give you is to troubleshoot one thing at a time...

Start with a can of compressed air and make sure you have all the dust out of everything... If it still has problems after that, then move onto the next step, which would be to check your cooling on your CPU, (make sure the heatsink is attached properly, fan is working, reapply thermal grease/solution, etc.). Once you know those two things aren't a problem, then you can move onto the rest of the things... That is if you think that overheating is the problem. If you do not think that cooling is the issue, then try the things that I mentioned that have to do with your hard disk drive.

BFonnes

 

[thecrecarc]

thanks, ill try those things out, and see how it goes.

the thing is, it freezes very erratically. it may freeze a few seconds after it boots into windows, or it may freeze several hours afterwords. it is very strange...

 

[bfonnes]

Originally posted by: thecrecarc
thanks, ill try those things out, and see how it goes.

the thing is, it freezes very erratically. it may freeze a few seconds after it boots into windows, or it may freeze several hours afterwords. it is very strange...

Well, it is good that you are checking and have checked power and cooling first, because if that's it, then that's a lot easier and less time consuming than having to back up everything and re-installing everything onto a fresh drive. Let me know how things go... I've had problems that seemed like they may have been hardware issues but were fixed by reinstalling windows to a different folder without reformatting, which is what you'll have to do if it's not a power or cooling issue. Usually a reinstall will help you determine definitively if it's a hardware/cooling issue or not. Most troubleshooting is trial and error. It helps you discover what's wrong when the various parts and troubleshooting of them is done in the correct order.

BFonnes

 

[Slammy1]

You'd be surprised at the number of NIC conflicts in the world...

But, sounds like that's not it. It usually manifests as interval failures (pauses, errors in event log). Try cleaning things up first, make sure you don't have obstructed air flows. If you drop temps by a significant amout (say 10C) you can do a slight bump on CPU voltage (assuming it's still not Prime stable). Since you're Memtest stable, I'd try that out see if you can get it Prime stable as your goal. My current PC had tons of driver issues until Cat x.y driver came out and they disappeared, but I've always been Prime/memtest stable.

I'd avoid long-term testing while debugging, it's stressful (to the PC as well) and you risk thermal runaway w/ P95. Temps sound like the right place to start. You may be seeing failure, which is GREAT cause processors came down in price recently...

EDIT: I lean towards hardware issue, since it's failing Prime95. But since it's run in Windows, reinstall would be the best first step.

 

[Slugbait]

<heavy sigh>