Hard lockups

[iviguy]

I have been having an issue with my system for a while where it will completely lock up. Whatever is on the screen stays there, screensaver, task manager, whatever.. No keyboard, no mouse. Even the NumLock key will not light on the keyboard.
I suspect hardware. Maybe a motherboard, CPU or powersupply. I have changed the cooling, underclocked, used different power sources, removed unneeded boards... etc. Its so random though that its hard to tell if what you did made an impact. It could run for a couple of days all day and not have an issue or it could lockup every 30 minutes to an hour. Reboot always solves the problem until the next one. No significant changes on the system except the wireless network board which has been removed and the problem still occurs.

I am kind of leaning toward a powersupply or mainboard at this point. Any input would be appreciated.

Asus A7N8X Deluxe w/2100+
1gig memory in sync
80gb harddrive and 60 gb harddrive
Antec 350w PS
XP Pro

 

[micker377]

How many sticks of memory do you have? Try one at a time. You can also run "memtest86" to check the memory. Since this is an intermittant problem, I would do a long test (over night).

 

[iviguy]

I have 3 sticks. I ran memtest and it was fine. I may remove sticks and try your suggestion. I had considered the memory but normally you will see other symptoms associated with memory problems. Blue screens, memory parity errors, etc. I have seen none of these. Only hard locks.

I might mention one other thing I found strange. I have the asus monitor running and at one lockup it had popped up with the voltage meter and the 12v side was at 11.5v. Why it popped up I don't know. But it may signify a power supply issue. But it still could be a mainboard or even CPU.

 

[Nelviticus]

You say you've changed the cooling - did you apply new thermal paste and properly remove the old stuff when you put the heatsink back on?

Nelviticus

 

[iviguy]

Yes. I removed all the old paste and reapplied the new. I have a lot of experience with this and cooling for overclocking so it was well done. The temp never reads above 107F at the highest at the CPU.