Need help with PC "freezing up" problem...

[CL328]

Hello,

This problem is driving me crazy!!!!! Anyone to help me solve this issue, YOU WILL BE MY HERO for LIFE.

Here is my problem:
My PC very, very randomly just freezes up. For no reason. I could be clicking on a window, selecting a file in Windows Explore, using a program and opening a menu, writing a text doc.... It does not matter what I am doing or NOT doing, maybe 2-3 times a week, my PC just locks up and does nothing. I have to hit reset to continue.
Ctrl-Alt-delete does nothing.

I don't think it is a software issue, because my pc runs fine (except for when it locks up).
I'm on my PC about 10-20 a day, try to leave it on 24-7. I have my own company and work from home as a web developer. I have lots of software on the PC. And like I said, it has locked up when 1 app is open or when 10 are opended.
I have gone for a week without any problems and it has locked up 3 time in one day.

I put the machine together in January of this year, which it includes the following:

-win 2K pro
-abit kt7 raid board
-1 256 crucial simm, 1 128 simm
-2 hard drives (not using raid)
-1 gig athalon chip
-hp burner
-plain cd drive

I've tested the memory with Simtester memory doc software, it checked out okay.
I installed mother board monitor, that is how I noticed the core 1 voltage reading flucuates a tad bit. (not sure if that matters, it flucuates less than 7%)
Temp. never goes above 45 degrees C. (however it does move up/down a lot and very fast.)

I've seen the temp go from 35 to 45 and back to 40 in less than a minute. Is that normal? It happens if I run certain programs.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent, stop, or find cause of this "freezing or locking up" problem?

THANK YOU
I appreciate any help!!
-Larry

 

[mistanapesis]

I was having the same problem and it turned out to be video driver, With windows XP, but W2K is not that much different from what I have read. If your unsure....Dont do it!

 

[Snipeatwrk]

Is your power supply of sufficient size? 300 watts for an Athlon. Early Thunderbirds ran hotter to the larger die size.That seems in range. Are all your add-in cards seated properly? Do you have proper air flow through the case itself? Do you have up to date sound and video drivers?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

There are four notable areas that will give rise to this sort of problem;

1) A heat issue.
2) A Hardware issue.
3) A Software issue.
4) A Resource conflict.

It doesn't look like you're haveing a heat issue - even 45 C is OK.

I don't know what hardware you're running, but you may find it's a bad RAM stick or an underpowered PSU. Snipeatwrk's suggestions are good ones.

If you've got tons of icons in your system tray, try reducing them to only the ones you need. I tend to leave the volume control and that's it. Defragment your hard disks regularly, ensure that DMA is set, and optimise your cache settings (page file, vcache, etc). A utility like SiSoft's Sandra will give good tips on optimisation.

Try swapping your cards to different slots (remove each one from Device Manager before changing slots!). This has solved numerous "wierd" issues for me.

I hope some of this is useful. CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[ianstar]

I've had this problem with a Athlon 900. Tried memory, PSU, drivers etc. Eventualy narrowed it down to either mobo or processor. I borrowed a Athlon 850 and hey presto stable as a rock.


Hope this helps

 

[DavidDude]

I've had this problem before it is usually caused by one or more settings set wrong in your bios - Go through your bios configuration pages and check every setting making sure they are correct

David@Daw Corp, 1999-2002

 

[CitrixEngineer]

OK, there are 101 things that will cause a PC to freeze up ;-)

Let's hope we get 101 suggestions - and responses from those for whom a particular suggestion has fixed a particular symptom. This could turn into a very useful thread. CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[lgebhart]

This indeed could be a very good thread for troubleshooting! Not 101 but some more things to try.

Keep in mind that all Windows computers will freeze once in awhile after alot of use. One of the things I have read as a reason for freezing is the fact that most windows os's are backward compatible thus allowing some programs written for both 16 and 32 bit programs. Some of these programs do not release memory the way they should when you close out of the program so your memory will get full after alot of use. I read this on the net so take it with a grain of salt.

How much ram ddr or otherwise does your video card have? Graphics intensive programs will start with the video ram and once it's gone will go for the machine's physical ram.

1)If you have your video set to the highest colors try setting them down a notch
2)Clear out all .tmp files
3)Clear out all internet temporary files and set your internet options to delete temporary internet files when you close out of IE. Also set your temporary internet folder to only allow 100 or 200mb of files under Tools/Internet Options/General/Settings.
4)run defrag
5)run scandisk
6)As others have said update all device drivers including the mobo

A utility like SiSoft's Sandra will give good tips on optimization. Great idea!

On the days it locks up 3 times did you cold boot or warm boot? Warm boot does not initialize all of the system files. I have had to cold boot three times before the system initializes the way it should after intensive use. I have 512mb of ram and a 64mb video card running on an Athlon 850mhz cpu, cdrw/cd/40gb hd/zip/floppy/ethernet/modem/usb printer and scanner. I too have a ton of programs and I have Scheduler/sound/ATI/AVG/CDRW/ZA and MSN running in the system tray.

My ATI video card gave me fits at first, but updating the drivers finally helped.

I assume your ram is actually DIMM and not SIMM since it is a newer computer.

If none of this works I'm sure you will get more ideas and I'm going to mark this thread myself so I can get more good ideas for optimization and freezing fixes.
ggebhart@clover.net
I hope I never get too old or arrogant to learn something new!

 

[jeltex]

Some ABIT motherboards have their bios default RAM voltage too high so check you have the proper voltage setting for your ram. Off the top of my head I think the bois reads 2.65 when it should be 2.5 though this is is related to your type of ram. This can cause intermittent crashes.

 

[MA5]

I have a similar problem as Larry (CL328) has.
I have read all you comments and thanks for the suggestion and advice.
In my case, I have also noticed the following:
1- PC will freeze within the first 20 min after every first cold start of the day.
2- when I restart the computer (using reset button) it will not freeze again.
3- I have found out, when the pc is restarted (within OS) immediately after a cold start. It will not freeze (froze only once during the past 2 months using this method).
4- Last week by accident I found out the pc hangs up after a minute of so when it is in BIOS, page “pc health status” (the page that checks the temp and fans RPMs). It only crashes in that page of BIOS and no other pages.
Is this the problem?
It would be interesting to find out if Larry’s mobo BIOS gives the same result?
Yesterday I emailed AMD & ABIT about the BIOS/mobo fault. I will post when I get an answer from them.



-win 2K pro sp2
-Norton AV 2002 + Norton Firewall 2002
-abit kR7A-RAID mobo (raid disabled) arrived with the latest BIOS version.
-pine AGP graphic card with nVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 engine
-2x 256MB PC2100 branded DIMMs (identical sticks)
-1 hard drives (not using raid)
-AMD XP1800+
-1 Yamaha SCSI burner (Tekram DC-395U/UW adapter)
-1 CDROM drive

All the above have the latest Win2k drivers and I do not see any problem in application, security or the system logs

Regards
Mas

 

[libertytech]

After reading everyone's comments I'm not sure if there is much left to be tested, but most of my freezing problems are from video conflicts or memory problems.

As stated already, it's good to turn the color depth down to 16-bit, and also try running 800x600 instead of a larger resolution.

One more thing I just thought of: does your computer still freeze in safe mode?

Update your video drivers as soon as you can, defrag your hard drive at least once per month, and use TaskMan to close any operation running that is extranneous.

The other big crasher for me is memory, and 2k has known issues with releasing dll's from memory. It's a bear to free up sometimes.

Try running a third party program to free your physical memory and change the cache options. Symantec used to be the one to use, but now there are hundreds. I'm partial to WinRAM Booster Professional, by Total-Idea Software (

http://www.totalidea.de).

It works for 98/ME/2000.

And i'm surprised no one has said this yet, but never rule out the possibility of a virus. Update your virus definitions and run a virus scan from a boot disk to ensure your system is clean.

Hope this helps someone, somewhere, sometime.

 

[CL328]

WOW... You guys/gals are great!!!

I need to re-read the posts and try a few things. HOWever, I did download and run Sandra Soft.

I will post the WHOLE COMPLETE report later tonight via a link on my web site.

AGAIN, I want to think everyone for helping, posting ideas and solutions.

I'm know I am asking a LOT, but I was hoping people could look at the report and *easliy* notice things that might be wrong or could cause the problem. As the problem could be anything, I feel I will never have enough time to go through them all.

Thanks
Larry

 

[Antimatter]

By the looks of the fluctuating vcore you could have a voltage regulator that's on the way out.
It's been a fairly common problem with Abit mobos for years.
Check the capacitors between the CPU socket and AGP slot for bulging. You might be able to replace them if you're competant with a soldering iron.

 

[CL328]

Hello,

I posted my system report...

http://www.webinteractiveconsulting.com/systemreport.htm

I will leave this up a for a few days, hopefully someone can spot something.

Couple things about the previous posts:
ANTIMATTER--- any ideas on how to explain what your talking about to a person (me) who does not know what a capacitor is

LIBERTY TECH--- virus is always uptodate, never tried to run in safe mode, video drivers are uptodate. with the memory issue... I'm pretty sure it has never been caused by lack of free memory. PC has freeze with nothing open after a cold boot.

Ma5--- thanks for any info you get from ABIT

Jeltex --- which voltage sensor/reading...

Igebhart --- maybe your can learn more about my machine/optmization than I can with the link above to the Sandra report. Some of the warning/tips, I could not find the any info on????

David Dude--- how do I know what settins I'm supposed to have??? or what is standard/normal etc.

Citrix --- I have been adding more programs in the system tray. ANYONE else think a certain number is too many?

Snipeatwrk --- ps is 300, fans/air flow not issue, I think cards/drivers uptodate


seems that lots of people mentioned video drive/card... I notice that Sandra soft gave stuff for the AGP info.

Like I said, hopefully, someone can give spefic things to try from lookig at the sandra report

THANKS

THANKS

 

[Antimatter]

A capacitor is generally cylindrical in shape(usually black plastic with a metal end exposed) and the top should be flat with an X on it.
It is composed of two metal strips with an insulator between them wrapped around and around inside the cylinder and holds a high voltage charge.
If the capacitor has been exposed to high temperatures for extended periods of time, it will start to bulge out on the flat metal end and will eventually explode. It can also leave black residue around the base.
Abit boards in the past have been poorly designed thermally with no means of dissipating the heat from hot MOSFET power transistors near those capacitors. The problem is especially chronic in boards with cpu slot design.

 

[MA5]

Hi CL328
I had a look at you systemreport.htm.
I noticed, CPU FSB is set to 200MHz and PC133 RAMs to 133MHz.
Doesn't this combination make the system unstable?

 

[libertytech]

I noticed that all of your PCI peripherals use IRQ 11. I'm not entirely sure if this is something Win2k does automatically, but you may want to check into it for hardware conflicts.
other than that there is nothing in your hardware setup that i can see immediately.

Perhaps you just need to back up your data and reinstall?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Have a look at

http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm

There are some superb links - and the article goes into tremendous technical depth.

I'm fairly sure that the Northbridge is asynchronous, so it shouldn't matter that the RAM runs at 133Mhz. Setting it to 100Mhz is worth a try, though.

Regarding System Tray objects, these are all things that are running in the background simultaneously, all consuming resources, and all potential system crash sources. So I disable the lot unless I actually need them (eg Virus checker). Things like Creative Audio Center, NVidia Tools and INCD are horrible and you don't need them. Audio Centre and NVidia tools (and similar) can usually be accessed via the Start Menu and/or the Control panel anyway. ATI's software tools are particularly hopeless. I've even seen the ATI software disable a PC.

Your soundcard is sharing the same IRQ as the modem, NIC and the HighPoint. This is a Bad Thing (TM). Moving the sound card and NIC to different slots will recify this. Moving the modem would help - but that's a fiddly operation which may involve re-configuring the thing. As it is, you would need to de-install the drivers for the SC and NIC and reconfigure the NIC for your LAN - but that's not much of a deal.

Also set the BIOS to assign an IRQ to the Video card - it's sharing IRQ 11 as well.

I know all the current theories on IRQ sharing, but I've resolved many issues this way, so I hope this helps you.

I notice you have a Z: drive. Are you attached to a Novell network? Network issues can also cause freeze-ups, with certain client versions. But this is a whole new ball game.


Good Luck!


Antimatter - I've never heard of this problem that Abit boards have with capacitors - and I've been working with them for 6 or 7 years now. Do you have a link or two - I'd be interested to read more.

Thanks

CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[CL328]

FYI:

My system runs GREAT almost all the time. Runs great 99.99999999% of the time. And the few random times it freezes is the only problems I have with it.

I have tried to think of a pattern, but I have not yet found it. For right now... IT IS COMPLETELY random as to when it freezes.

It does not matter if 1 or 10 programs are open, warm or cold boot, running for 1 hour or 10 days, etc.etc.

With that said...
I may have noticed something or figured out something:
For the past week or so, I have not logged off the PC. I generally logged off as a user each night and then logged back on the next day.

For the past week or so, it has not frooze up (spelling?)

My thinking is:
If it can run for a few hours or 1 day... it will run a long time without freezing.

If I log off or power down the PC, it reinializes something which may cause it to freeze in less than a day... maybe with in the next couple hours after booting up.

So, maybe the cause of my problems is 70% of the time my PC initializes CORRECTLY and it is fine.
30% of the time, something gets screwed up and it will soon freeze on me.

Maybe everyone staring into this problem can focus on what W2K initializes or my PC initializes once the PC boots into windows.

thanks

 

[lgebhart]

While looking up the AGP issue I found this on AMD's site:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_2364,00.html

The link above will take you to the utilities download, on the right there is a Windows 2000 link, then comes the agreement you will have to accept to get to the download. I do not run Windows2000 so I don't know if this will help or not.

I have included part of the page for your viewing.

Description of Issue
An issue has been identified that could result in the corruption of video data shared between AGP graphics adapters and AMD Athlon™ or AMD Duron™ family processors, including the AMD Athlon™ MP, mobile Athlon™ 4, and AMD Athlon™ XP processors, when running Microsoft Windows®2000 Professional, Windows®2000 Server, or Windows®2000 Advanced Server. This issue is independent of system chipset and has been observed when running Ziff-Davis 3D Winbench™ 2000 and Mad Onion 3DMark™ 2000 in benchmarking mode. Note: This patch is not needed for Windows XP.

Solution
AMD and Microsoft have worked together to identify a patch that involves adding a key to the registry. To add the key run the registry key installation file below or add the registry key as detailed in Microsoft KnowledgeBase article Q270715. AMD recommends that AMD Athlon™ and AMD Duron™ family processors, including AMD Athlon™ MP, mobile AMD Athlon™ 4, and AMD Athlon™ XP processor users with AGP graphics adapters running Microsoft Windows®2000 Professional, Windows®2000 Server, or Windows®2000 Advanced Server install this patch.

Tip T327 Reduce colour depth to improve video performance. 16-bit may be enough.
Tip T319 A refresh rate of at least 75Hz is recommended. Increase it if possible.
Tip T322 Turn off screen savers. Use the monitor power saving mode.
Tip T323 Remove the desktop wallpaper to save memory and improve performance.
Tip T325 Turn off window animation to reduce delays.

Have you tried any of these tips? Huge wallpaper will use alot of resources and so will programs in the system tray. 16bit versus 32bit in the video should help.


ggebhart@clover.net
I hope I never get too old or arrogant to learn something new!