Random Lockups - Please Help!

[Guest_imported]

Hey, ive had this PC custom built for about 18 months now, and have only upgraded the HD about 6 months ago, but recently (over the past few months) i have noticed that my computer randomly locks up. This has actually been happening over the past 12 months, but it was very rare back then, only happening when i was transferring large files and playing large playlists of mp3s at the same time, and my PC would lock up, and a high pitched squeal would come from the speakers. It also used to lock up on the login screen, but a restart or 2 usually fixed this.

Recently though, these problems have only become much more common (many times per day), and more severe. I now find that my PC will lockup at complete random times, even when it is idle, if im playing games, listening to mp3s, doing work, or even just booting up. It even happens well before i have even reached the windows bootup process, and now causing my PC to not start at all unless it is given a good whack (seems to work sometimes), or leaving it off for several minutes. I'll turn my PC on, and it will just appear to go into standby mode, and the monitor switches off, as well as the rest of the computer.

And finally, to make matters worse, i find my cd drive (which has worked perfectly up till now) starts ejecting the tray when it boots up, and when i push it back in, it spits it out again, and the LED flashes quickly. The only way to fix this i have found, is to disconnect the power cable leading to the back of the cd drive.

Im really not sure what to do. Im going to be giving my system an overhaul soon, so if i could find out what the problems are before then, it would be great. A friend of mine had a similar problem and Compaq told him he needed a new motherboard.

Im running a (custom built) Duron 700, with 128M of Ram, Western Digital 60gig HD (unpartitioned for now), AZ11 1st Mainboard (with onboard sound), 8MB nVidia Vanta-LT AGP, 50X Generic cd-rom, ancient 2x Acer cd-rw, SMC EZ 10/100 network card, and running Win98SE (upgrading to 2k and perhaps linux mandrake in a couple of weeks).

Any help/replies would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Jaymz

 

[dinosnake]

Wow! A tough one, not being able to see the unit.

Smacking it makes it work? Remove and reseat all boards, including RAM. Chech the motherboard mounting - they could have missed a spacer and the board is grounding out against the case.

It kinda sounds like a cold solder joint, maybe in power supply or motherboard. Could even be HD failing.

I'm sorry to sound vague but debugging - especially in a problem like this one - is half art, half science. Remove everything except HD, RAM, video, floppy. Add one component back in one at a time. I'm suspecting a MB problem - saw the same thing myself. Your mileage may vary...

 

[Guest_imported]

thanks for the help
ill be sure to try all that, and just hope it works.
ive been told it could be a power supply or a motherboard problem, but i really dont know for sure
maybe even a fresh install with win2k will help.. would sure be cheaper! lol

 

[rudeboyjeff]

We got another whacker on our hands gentlemen...Sounds like A) you got bad ram
B) ram and/or processor aren't seated properly or
C) your computer is masciocistic

I'd try a and b first

 

[Guest_imported]

well.. the ram and processor are seated right (checked that), it could be dodgy tho, ill try another stick when i get hold of one.

and my PC doesnt like it when i whack it now, so maybe its lost any masochistic tendencies it mightve had?

 

[Guest_imported]

your not alone. I also have the az11 mb and have been encountering an increase in hard lockups. I'm looking at a possible mb problem, everything else seems to work fine in one of my other systems.

 

[Guest_imported]

Man, sounds like my brother's computer to a T. Except for the CD drive part... his is just a piece of crap and has been doing that since the day he got it
Do you by any chance have a BIOS wrapper (such as EZ BIOS) installed for your hard drive? My brother's computer couldn't support his new 40 gig (only could do 30) so I had to use the BIOS overlay that came with the hard drive. His computer (which I'm using right now so I hope it lasts ) started seizing about three or four weeks ago. We thought it was his old hard drive, as it had crashed a couple of times, so I extracted it. Still locked up. He had 256 MB of RAM on two memory sticks, and I pulled the older one and put the new one in it's place. That seemed to fix the problem for about two weeks, but it started all over again last night. It'll lock up, and then when scandisk runs after rebooting, that'll lock up, and sometimes it'll lock up in the memory test, or before anything even show up on the monitor when I turn it on. I thought RAM at first, but I think it may be the motherboard or the processor. If I figure it out, I'll keep you posted... if you figure it out, let me know

 

[tlcscousin]

Try unhooking any USB devices if present. A bad USB device will cause problems with lockups and booting.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hmm, could dust in the USB ports do that? There aren't any USB devices hooked up, but I'm sure the ports have plenty o' beautiful dust in them

 

[Guest_imported]

well...personally I think it is the HD,I had installed a western Digital 80g HD and had the same problems ,I resloved the problem by selling my HD and replacing it with a new one...I think master cow is on to something with the BIOS, it does come with EZ bios software for installation
the new drive I bought , did not , and I have not had the problem since...and I have put all the old sticks of RAM back in ,that I replaced trying to resolve the problem and they work just fine ... but it is difficult to diagnose not seeing the unit lock up...I replaced almost everything ,but the hard drive and the problem continued,up until I got a new HD...I would suggest putting the old HD back in just to see if the problem continues

 

[Guest_imported]

It could well be with CPU fan - one thing none of yuo guys have suggested. If it is a below par one - the CPU might be getting too hot - the new HDD might not help this cause. This would explain why turning it off works - because it will cool down. Try an uprated CPU fan

 

[Guest_imported]

I had exactly the same problem with my AZ11 and Duron 700. Turned out to be the On-Board sound card and haven't had a single lockup since thats been disabled.

 

[Guest_imported]

I just put this az11 1st mainboard pro together
I can't get the sound to work even if I installed a pci sound card no Sound at all
please help !
I am just about to trash this board
Yes it is a real deal and easy to install BUT BUT NO sound
could some one please help me! I tried everything (bios) and normal install
Thanks in advance
Cissy