Windows 2000 freeze up 7

[Whitemtntn]

I am running Windows 2000 Pro at home. Occasionally, the O/S freezes up completely. (No mouse, keyboard, no Ctrl-Alt-Del). I have to power down and start over. This has happened with nothing running in the foreground, as well as during various tasks. I have a cable modem. I have one by one been disabling processes, including Zone Alarm, Norton AntiVirus 2000, Synchronization Manager... Still, the problem. Anyone have any ideas why this happens, or how I can find out what is causing it? Thanks.
- WhiteMtntn

 

[Turbo]

WhiteMtntn,

I am having the same problems and running the same ware except for Norton. I have yet to find the problem or solution. I'll let you know if I hear of anything. Send me your e-mail. Turbo

"There is a fine line between confidence and conceit" - Ken Mai

 

[aditrusj]

Did you check if your pc is on the HCL? Looks like it's pointing to a hardware conflict. I have W2 also for my home pc, and not once have I gotten the BSOD or any kind of slowness in my OS...

 

[Whitemtntn]

Actually I built the machine myself in 1998. I used all primo parts and its been a truly great machine for me. Hardware: PII 350, 128MB RAM, ASUS P2B motherboard, Diamond Viper TNT2 16MB AGP video card, SB PCI 128 sound, Western Digital 30GB hard drive, NE2000 NIC, Panasonic 32X CD-ROM, CTX PR710 17" monitor.
- WhiteMtntn

 

[Whitemtntn]

The problem only began recently. I've been running 2000 since October. I changed the video card, but the problem started before that. Software? who knows, ive installed a number of things, but sometimes nothing is running (in the foreground) when this happens. Truthfully, virtually none of my hardware is on the HCL, but hey, what is?
-WhiteMtntn

 

[sjf]

i agree with bill2000, pull everything out of your machine (ie. sound card, network card etc...) and start it bare bones and see if it still hangs. If it does then you have a m/board or ram problem, if it doesn't it is one of the other hardware items. One by one add them back in until you pin point the problem.
sjf

PS. Get rid of the NE2000 card, I have always had problems with them, especially under NT and 2000.

 

[Guest_imported]

Whitemtntn,

Sif has the right idea. I've had to do the "remove all the peripherals and deduce piece-by-piece" method to determine if that peripheral was the cause of the problem.

However, I would recommend the following since I've experienced your problem on many occasions. It usually points to 1 of 2 things:

1) Bad memory.

2) Mobo Chipset drivers not updated.

I have an ASUS A7V Motherboard with a VIA Chipset. I loaded W2k from scratch, forgot to update my chipset drivers and kept on freezing up. Loaded the VIA Chipset drivers and voila... no more freezes (knock on wood). Just a suggestion.

Regarding Point 1. If you have another computer which uses the same type of memory, swap them out and see if you still get the same results. Hope that helps.

 

[bmacman]

I agree with SJF. It sounds like a hardware issue to me as well. I would start with the NE2000 NIC because they have been known to cause problmes and go from there.

Brett

 

[princewilly]

Had the same problem, replace memory and it works fine.
Win 2k lockups are usually hardware related.
Also check event log.
application errors will point you to software
system errors will point you to hardware.

 

[Guest_imported]

I too built a new system and experienced identical graphics hard lock-up problems.

ASUS A7V133, Athlon 900, 512 Mb, LeadTek Geforce GTS Pro 64 Mb, SoundBlaster Live X Gamer, USR Pro (Hardware) Modem, Linksys II PCI NIC.

In my case I 'disabled' the Advanced Power Confifguation Interface (APCI) device and installed as a 'Standard PC' per these instructions from the GeForce Faq:

http://www.tweak3d.net/faq/#hw:gef:troub:all1irqw2k

I also updated my MB and GeForce BIOS to the latest. Installed the Windows 2000 SP1 and installed the updated (Pre SP2) VIA Chipset patch available at :

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q261/6/06.asp

I also assigned IRQ 11 for the AGP (PCI 1) slot and reserved this IRQ in my BIOS settings. Not a single lockup since. I did a whole lot of legwork to realise that my graphics card simply needed it's own IRQ! Unbelievable....

BTW I too thought it was ZoneAlarm or Norton AntiVirus2000 causing the problem.

 

[witness]

More common than makes sense is the fluctuation of power when it steeps to about 124 to 126 or drops to 105 to 107. This combined with poorly made memories or poorly designed platforms for intel/via chipsets lead to lockups. We have seen a number of freezes surrounding poor video drivers or using a newer card and letting W2K use stored drivers. Another tip would be to check the BIOS rev for MB and video. People bringing their systems into the shop for these reasons most often upgraded the OS instead of a clean wipe.

 

[Scrub]

My Win2k machine also freezes without warning - usually when I'm browsing with IE. My event log lists several application error messages at the moment of freezing like the following:

Event ID: 41
Date: 4/9/2001
Time: 10:50:28 PM
User: N/A
Computer: CR680987-A

Description:
WMI ADAP was unable to create object index 2106 for Performance Library ContentFilter because no value was found in the 009 subkey


When I look in my registry at the 009 subkey (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib\009) it cannot be edited - not that I would know what to change it to...

Anyway, I'm running an Asus CUSL2 mb, ATI Radeon, a Plextor burner, etc... It looked like a hardware problem at first, but these error messages indicate something else...

I'm happy to continue contributing to this troubleshooting thread.

Cheers,
Scrub

 

[Poolman]

Whitemtntn-

I have experienced the same problem as you using Win 2K-SR1; complete freeze during normal operation. I also built my system:

ASUS A7V KT133, Athlon Thunderbird 1.2, 256 Mb, Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS Pro 64 Mb, SoundBlaster Live Platinum, USR Pro (Hardware) Modem, NIC, DVD/CR-RW.

I don’t believe that NAV or ZoneAlarm are to blame because I encountered this problem well before I installed them. I am also using the latest drivers for my AGP card and bus (including the VIA patch from Microsoft and the AMD reg. patch for Win 2K) but it has not solved my problem yet. I agree with the rest of the people that suggested the tear down approach to trouble-shooting a hardware conflict but this is time consuming and could be expensive if you don't have another RAM chip. Plus, I imagine that your problem is sporadic and may not occur for days at a time (like mine). As for the power situation, I have serious UPS w/ line filter but it is possible I may be drawing to much power from my power supply but not likely.

I am going to try Scrub's fix from Microsoft. If I have any luck I'll post again.

 

[armorsix]

look at the power managment, I had the same issue I disabled the hibernate function, and changed the sheme to minimal power managemt. I believe this issue is caused by a confliction with the the MOBO and the OS advance power management features.



armorsix

 

[Scrub]

I took Amorsix and Barney J's advice and disabled the APCI, set the PnP in the BIOS to no, and re-installed all the drivers. My AGP irq went from 9 to 11. No luck - they system froze not 15 minutes later and the same error messages are listed in the event log (see my previous posting).

Interestingly I also have a Creative SB Live Plat (Poolman). A connection maybe?

Could others interested in solving this problem check their application log entries and compare them with mine? Anything references to the 009 key or Wmgmt?

 

[Whitemtntn]

I have formulated a theory that the Windows 2000 freeze-ups are caused by Soundblaster sound cards. (I have SB PCI128). I have gone into Device Manager and Disabled the sound card, and so far it has never froze-up while the card is disabled.
I am planning on acquiring another sound card made by another company (Turtle Beach perhaps)...
WhiteMtntn

 

[SadDope]

Same here. I think I've tried near everything short of the 'take-it-apart-one-at-a-time' approach. But I don't get anything on the event log. As far as I can tell, everything just stops.
At this point, I'm not even sure if the problem is hardware or software related. The usual software suspects: Zone Alarm, Norton. After reinstalling Win2k without them, I'm sad to say the problem still persists. I'm also not sure if it is hardware related because sometimes when my machine is in a good mood, it just hums along happily for days or weeks on end before the problem comes back. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Zelandakh]

I'm getting about 10 crashes a day, but don't have any similar hardware to the above:

Silicon Graphics Visual 320. Dual P III 550, 512MB RAM, 2 x Ultra SCSI 9 GB drives on a Qlogic card. Intel 8255x net card, 3V USB. No sound card listed in the device manager interestingly, but it works fine!

Could it be network related? Mine runs fine locally, but dies big time when running to an NT domain.

Are we looking at the same problems or different ones?

 

[woof2001]

I have a similar problem but I think I've narrowed down to the video card. I have a athlon 800 running on a asus A7V with a Radeon card. But its a PCI card so the old AGP fix doesn't seem to apply. I have no problems without any graphics acceleration. Now just recently a new problem has arisen. When I use internet explorer my memory gets bogged down and the program stops responding! Its a headache. I'm using a little undersized power supply (250W) could that be the problem?

 

[Scrub]

I have troubleshot this issue to the point where if I can restore the "ATI WDM Specialized PCD Codec" my problem will be solved. Unfortunatly however, I cannot get this driver to re-install. I've got ATI working on the problem (yeah, right) and I may have a solution soon.

Scrub