random hanging (freezing) in XP Pro

qubit747qubit747
edited February 2005 in Hardware
Windows XP Pro, 120 gig HD, 850 MHz Athlon Thunderbird, TNT2 64 MB vid card, Firewire card, 383 MB RAM, onboard soundcard, I think thats all ya need to know.

My problem is thus:
Randomly (always between 30 minutes and 1 hour and 15 minutes) my computer freezes. Completly stops responding. Mouse, keyboard, power button, nothing works. Image stays frozen on screen. I hit the power switch in the back, turn it back on, and it works fine...until its been up for more than 30 minutes. Also, theres no warning, and I'm not launching any programs when it happens. Any ideas? Microsoft website didn't have anything, at least that I saw.

Comments

  • LiLbRoLiLbRo Troy, Michigan
    edited June 2004
    when was the last time u dusted that beast off, looks like an older system..

    i am thinking maybe overheating?!?
  • qubit747qubit747
    edited June 2004
    ya...its been a while for Old Hickory...

    I was thinking maybe some overheating too, but its not OCed, and CPUCool reports a 73' F temp for the mobo, and a 85.7' temp for the proc. (Computers been running for about 5 minutes). I've got a fan and a big ole heatsink of the processor. I'll report the system temp @ different time intervals in a later post.
  • qubit747qubit747
    edited June 2004
    25 Minutes: 91' F for the Processor, 75' F for the mobo
    40 minutes: 94.6' F for the proc, 76.1' F for the mobo
  • ZuntarZuntar North Carolina Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    Although your CPU and mobo temps aren't that bad, It does sound like it is over heating. :confused:
    Maybe your PSU is over heating, or it could be the vid card. Clean clean clean!!!!! canned air or air compressor is preferred for those down deep places like the psu.

    Hopefully that will elevate the problem, but NO GUARANTEES. Once things over heat to the point of shutting down, there may be no going back. At that point you will need to start swapping parts. ;)

    GOOD LUCK! Keep us posted! :thumbsup:
  • qubit747qubit747
    edited June 2004
    interesting thing I noticed...don't know if it affects my problem or not:
    my heatsink on my processor isn't hot. as in, is cool to the touch. No warmth what soever from it. I removed it, and touched my processor, which wasn't hot either. Any ideas?
  • LiLbRoLiLbRo Troy, Michigan
    edited June 2004
    hrm, maybe ur temp probe is goofed up, and its gettin bad readings, triping the safty? i dunno.. i say its time for an upgrade anyway ;)
  • GothicSatan187GothicSatan187 Carleton, Michigan
    edited February 2005
    I'm having the same problem with a system i just built, i have a AMD Duron 1200 with 512mb of ram, an ATI raedon 9550 and i have 4 fans on the case, one on the processor, and the one in the PSU. i can have my computer on all day and really nothing happens, but once in a while, (at least once a day) it just freezes with no response, my power button works, i hit that to restart and boot back to normal. my temps are good, i read somewhere that a capacitor on the mb may have burst and is leaking causeing it to stop responding, but this is a new board so it's not that, don't know an absolute cause but interested in hearing responses.
  • imported_oldtimerimported_oldtimer Mississauga,ON
    edited February 2005
    Freezing associated with heating ,whow.
    You temps are fine if the readings contain ok
    A restart wouldn't solve this.
    Doesn't ctrl,alt,del work ?
    Is it always the same thing your doing when it happens ?
    Why don't you use the front reset button though ?
    This problem is floating around,i havn't seen a real good fix yet.
    But i doesn't happen to me.
    XP Pro SP1
    Why not use your PC for a few days with no Firewall and Virus protection unless your browseing.Some good files can be detected as infected.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited February 2005
    oldtimer wrote:
    Freezing associated with heating ,whow.
    You temps are fine if the readings contain ok
    A restart wouldn't solve this.
    Doesn't ctrl,alt,del work ?
    Is it always the same thing your doing when it happens ?
    Why don't you use the front reset button though ?
    This problem is floating around,i havn't seen a real good fix yet.
    But i doesn't happen to me.
    XP Pro SP1
    Why not use your PC for a few days with no Firewall and Virus protection unless your browseing.Some good files can be detected as infected.

    There is no good fix because often the problem on two freezing systems is never the same. It comes down to the basics again, memtest, driver updates scandisk, defrag disk, adware, spyware, viruses, corruped vxd index, corrupted .dll bloated registries, could have bad bios settings or heating problems then worse case bad hardware.

    As for using the powerbutton to shutdown as opposed to reset is because IF pressing (not pressing and holding) will shutdown the computer it will break any current loops and do a propper shutdown as opposed to just a hard reset.
  • GothicSatan187GothicSatan187 Carleton, Michigan
    edited February 2005
    i do use the reset button, thats what i ment, i have xp pro sp1, and i just installed the os, there really isn't anything on there, i have spybot and it finds nothing, as for firewall and antivirus, i have used zonealarm forever now and when i was on my last system it didn't have any conflicts. I have the latest drivers for my mb and vid card already installed. already defragged, no it does not happen at the exact time, or when i run a certian set of programs. It's completely random. if i hit the shutdown button it stay froze, you have to hard restart, ctrl + alt + del dont work. i'm thinkin that my prob is from what someone said above, i don't have enough power to support everything inside the case. going to replace the psu and see what my results are, needs to be done regardless.
  • imported_oldtimerimported_oldtimer Mississauga,ON
    edited February 2005
    GothicSatan187 wrote:
    i do use the reset button, thats what i ment, i have xp pro sp1, and i just installed the os, there really isn't anything on there, i have spybot and it finds nothing, as for firewall and antivirus, i have used zonealarm forever now and when i was on my last system it didn't have any conflicts. I have the latest drivers for my mb and vid card already installed. already defragged, no it does not happen at the exact time, or when i run a certian set of programs. It's completely random. if i hit the shutdown button it stay froze, you have to hard restart, ctrl + alt + del dont work. i'm thinkin that my prob is from what someone said above, i don't have enough power to support everything inside the case. going to replace the psu and see what my results are, needs to be done regardless.
    Yes i have tried to stress this and outline a good steady Voltage reading.
    Anything less than 350 is useless especially if you use usb devices.
    I hear that package system are bad for this,so get a new 350 or better and its a wise investment.
    Just get the right one and it seems that might be a problem if you have say a Dell case.Be carefull.
  • GothicSatan187GothicSatan187 Carleton, Michigan
    edited February 2005
    I think i found the problem with the computer, i had a 400w PSU, but the problem is lack of thermal grease between the heat sink and the processor, even though there was some on there, there wasn't enough, i re applied the grease and re set the processor and haven't had a prob since! I think the random freezing is from that, only because the case and temps were good, and you can never check what the temp is when it freezes, but anyways it works so i'm happy. Hope this helps someone else having that problem.
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