Major PC Issues
JazzX
cl_labelmaps ∞ Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9285Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester
cl_labelmaps ∞ Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9285Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Machine completely locks up frequently</div>So basically for the last 3 or so weeks my PC has started locking up randomly to the point that the machine literally stops in its current state. The image on the screen freezes, USB Devices keep their lights on but actions with them cause no response from the OS, theNumlock and Caplock keys don't cause their respecitve LEDs to light up, and if a sound was playing at the time of the lockup it keeps playing that tone.
Initially it was happening roughly at a frequency of once every two or three days, then every night, then every couple of hours and now I'm lucky if it gets through the boot process so it can get to the Windows login and freeze-up. However the period isn't, and has never been consistent. There are still times now where I can work for a couple of hours before it freezes, and back when it was staying up for days at a time, it would occasionally freeze during boot.
I haven't seen any evidence that a specific action on the machine leads to the lock up. Many times it has happened while I was just working with just IRC and Firefox open, once or twice it has happened while playing NS or Oblivion, for a long time it was always happening at night while the machine was idle and now it happens during boot roughly 2 out of 3 restarts (and the lockup has occured during the memory checks, IDE-device detection, and when the WinXP logo first appears).
I get the generic "Windows has recovered from a serious error" when (if) it does start XP, and I have managed to get scandisk to run for my primary and secondary HDDs with no major issues noted. There are some bad sectors on the C drive, but I believe those have been there since before this started happening. One time I actually didn't freeze up, but instead received a generic BSOD that said that my problem is likely an issue with the CPU, PSU, Motherboard, Hard Drive, RAM, or Video Card (wow helpful).
My guess is the Video card is fine but almost all of the other hardware in the machine could be suspect. The CPU is a year and a half old, the PSU about two and a half years, the RAM is all over the place (I'm honestly not sure when I got some of it), and the Motherboard is at least 5 years old. There are three HDDs in the machine, C is 20GB, houses the OS and most of the non-game applications on it and is oldest at 4 or 5 years old; D is 80GB, is about 3 years old and just has games and some media files; F is 200GB is less then a year old and only has media files and some backups located on it.
So anyone have an idea how I can figure out exactly where the issue lies? This is the only working PSU I have, my only other Motherboard is for a Pentium III and the last time I saw it running was two years ago so swapping out pieces to see what is wrong isn't terriblely realistic. Building a cutting-edge machine isn't an option at this point, as I was completely unimpressed with XP64 so I'd rather just replace what is not working with a similar piece.
Initially it was happening roughly at a frequency of once every two or three days, then every night, then every couple of hours and now I'm lucky if it gets through the boot process so it can get to the Windows login and freeze-up. However the period isn't, and has never been consistent. There are still times now where I can work for a couple of hours before it freezes, and back when it was staying up for days at a time, it would occasionally freeze during boot.
I haven't seen any evidence that a specific action on the machine leads to the lock up. Many times it has happened while I was just working with just IRC and Firefox open, once or twice it has happened while playing NS or Oblivion, for a long time it was always happening at night while the machine was idle and now it happens during boot roughly 2 out of 3 restarts (and the lockup has occured during the memory checks, IDE-device detection, and when the WinXP logo first appears).
I get the generic "Windows has recovered from a serious error" when (if) it does start XP, and I have managed to get scandisk to run for my primary and secondary HDDs with no major issues noted. There are some bad sectors on the C drive, but I believe those have been there since before this started happening. One time I actually didn't freeze up, but instead received a generic BSOD that said that my problem is likely an issue with the CPU, PSU, Motherboard, Hard Drive, RAM, or Video Card (wow helpful).
My guess is the Video card is fine but almost all of the other hardware in the machine could be suspect. The CPU is a year and a half old, the PSU about two and a half years, the RAM is all over the place (I'm honestly not sure when I got some of it), and the Motherboard is at least 5 years old. There are three HDDs in the machine, C is 20GB, houses the OS and most of the non-game applications on it and is oldest at 4 or 5 years old; D is 80GB, is about 3 years old and just has games and some media files; F is 200GB is less then a year old and only has media files and some backups located on it.
So anyone have an idea how I can figure out exactly where the issue lies? This is the only working PSU I have, my only other Motherboard is for a Pentium III and the last time I saw it running was two years ago so swapping out pieces to see what is wrong isn't terriblely realistic. Building a cutting-edge machine isn't an option at this point, as I was completely unimpressed with XP64 so I'd rather just replace what is not working with a similar piece.
Comments
Then I'd recommend cheap RAM for diagnostics. Sure, a single new retail-boxed 128meg or 256meg stick won't be enough to run Windows XP on at any decent speed, but it'll likely be $30 or less, and the time saved narrowing down that aspect of the problem could be worth $30.
Your motherboard likely has a group of BIOS settings for defaults, a group for performance, and a group for stability. Change it to stability if you haven't already.
Back up your files like crazy.
Try running the case with/without its sidepanel on and see what difference it makes.
<strike>Get a trialware/freeware program to monitor CPU temperatures during operation and look up whether those temperatures/voltages are normal for your CPU model.</strike> I see you're already running such software.
Let us know what else happens.
--Scythe--
Then benchmark different systems. Memory, cpu, etc.
Alternative solution: You deserve a spanking new pc, fresh out of the bubble wrap with that clean factory smell and blazing speed. As a bonus, you get to pop each bubble in the wrap individually.
1. You have a virus. If you can get into windows, you may want to attempt a virus scan if possible. You may also want to attempt a second scan if possible, using an online scanner. HouseCall is a good un'. However, considering the frequency of the crashes, this may not be possible at this point.
<strike>2. You have a simple hardware based corruption. In paticular, it seems like your CPU or video card could be overheating. My eyes are on the CPU, personally. Make sure the fans for all parts of your hardware are working and are in place, and if possible determine your operating temprature.</strike> ED: oops.
3. You have a severe software-based corruption caused by windows being stupid. Format and reinstall everything. OR You have a severe hardware-based corruption. This could be almost anything, even a bad power supply, but I suggest starting at the RAM and video card and working your way down the list if possible.
4. You can not repair the computer using any of these means, and you could simply get a new one. This would repair the problem, but is rather expensive.
I suspect, sadly, that 3 and 4 will be the most effective in your case...
The good news is that the freezing appears to have stopped, the bad news is that everything is now pointing to one of the drives is dead/dying. On boot it doesn't autodetect the primary slave 50% of the time, and if I try to run scandisk on that drive, it locks-up a couple of seconds through the process. I even ran into a BSOD titled "Kernel Data Image Error" which apparently is caused when you have a HDD or two that are going.
Thankfully that drive is 90% games so almost nothing on it is of consequence. There are some files there that I need to recover, so I'm in the process of getting that stuff onto other media now. And while there are some files I had from school, and some other almost-useful stuff on there, the pieces I'm most concerned with are the NS Minimaps, which all sit on that Drive <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> .
Thank you to everyone for the suggestions and help so far. I'll let you know what ends up happening.
- Jim
Glad to hear you've figured it out, and thankfully disks cheap and easy to replace.
Try not autodetecting the disk in bios.
Try another molex, if it seems like intermittent power.
Is it a hard disk that you can upgrade its firmware?
Can you make is secondary master, and put a CD/DVD drive as its slave, if its on the way out then when it stops responding, the slave will also 'vanish', if its just power the slave "usually" doesn't get affected.
Remove any virtual ram or windows recovery files from it.
I cant think of anything else ><
This leads me to believe that Drive issue is just a symptom, not the actual source of the problems. Next up: replace the IDE cables for that set of drives, and if that is a no go, try to find myself a K7-compatible mobo. I know New Egg has a couple, but if I can pick one up locally I'll probably go that way, cause I have time to work on it this weekend.
I'm ordering a new Mobo and Processor from New Egg. It's not a massive step up from my current system, but it'll allow me to use my current video card and RAM so I'm very happy about that. Just to satisfying some morbid curiosity once the new machine is together, I'm going to try and turn the remains of the other machine into a Media Box.
I might still have an issue with the one drive but I've already got a replacement for it (same size drive was on sale at a local store). I did manage to royally mess up my Data Drive in an attempt to backup the other drive. Somehow I ran into an error while building a partition on it that managed to not only invalidate the new partition, but wipe out the file system for the entire drive. The not-so-bad-news is the only things on that Drive were MP3's and Video Files. And I've actually done things like this 3 times to my MP3 collection so it never gets very big, as I keep on accidently deleting it.
Thanks again to everyone who read through my babbeling and gave advice and suggestions. It was much appreciated.