windows 2000 freezing up intermittently

[bellins1]

I have a problem with my windows 2000 machine always freezing up intermittently, sometime it stays on 2 hours, sometimes, it can't even get past the logon screen without freezing...not sure if it's a hardware or software issue though.... AMD K7- 1333 MHz cpu, 60 GB ibm IDE drive, ECS-K7S5A motherboard, with an older 52x cdrom drive, and generic floppy drive, AGP ATI Radeon 7500 dual monitor, integrated SIS NIC and audio, and a secondary 3COM NIC(3c905B)......
I gave it a clean install of windows 2000, updated all the patches that the windows updater found, all the patches that norton updater found, checked for viruses with the latest virus definitions, changed the hd,cd config so, hd=prim,Master, and cd=sec,slave...

I gave up when I took it to bestbuy and they looked at it and $30 later told me that there's nothing wrong with it...they couldn't tell if it was a hardware or software problem, but did suggest that I might want to try a new BIOS flash update. It didn't crash on them once... ARRGGGHHH...

Does anyone know why this problem is happening? It crashed/froze on me about 15 times in 2 hours... I would start it up, and then about 2 minutes after the ctrl-alt-del screen appeared to log on, i would see the floppy drive led light up for a second, then immediately the hard drive led would light up...it would freeze most often at this point, before I even logged on... just by moving the mouse..it would freeze...Not sure why, anybody else have this problem.

The temperature in the bios seems fine, and the fan is running(1 month old)... The whole thing has got practically all new parts in it because this continues to have problems....................Any ideas?


Thanks in advance... Steve .. bellins1@yahoo.com

 

[DrBrianM]

You didn't mention the RAM. Has that been replaced (or substituted) since you started having this problem?

 

[Guest_imported]

Hello If you have checked ram and swapped hardware components in and out to eliminate them as well as triying different O/S's and new drivers/old drivers, Then I would suggest it is a voltage problem where i live the main transformaer is faulty and the voltage coming out the wall varies between 160 and 290volts. This is bad. It destroyed 2 sticks of ram and a power supply before i went out and bought a UPS. (350VA model). Just spend the litte extra and get a voltage regulating one. The first thing I did was add to extra 40amp cables and some external clamps and attached a Truck battery to the UPS for around 4 hours of uninterrupted power even without the mains. If you have a power monitoring utility with your machine look at the graphs of power output if they fluctuate constantly it's voltage. B4 the UPS mine fluctuated all over the place and ever time my CPU core voltage dropped below 1.65v the computer would hang. Havn't had a lockup in six months since i got the ups. rant over.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hello If you have checked ram and swapped hardware components in and out to eliminate them as well as triying different O/S's and new drivers/old drivers, Then I would suggest it is a voltage problem where i live the main transformaer is faulty and the voltage coming out the wall varies between 160 and 290volts. This is bad. It destroyed 2 sticks of ram and a power supply before i went out and bought a UPS. (350VA model). Just spend the litte extra and get a voltage regulating one. The first thing I did was add to extra 40amp cables and some external clamps and attached a Truck battery to the UPS for around 4 hours of uninterrupted power even without the mains. If you have a power monitoring utility with your machine look at the graphs of power output if they fluctuate constantly it's voltage. B4 the UPS mine fluctuated all over the place and ever time my CPU core voltage dropped below 1.65v the computer would hang. Havn't had a lockup in six months since i got the ups. rant over.

 

[darranagl]

A couple of suggestions..

You said that when you booted up the PC and it comes with the login screen (ctrl-alt-del) then hard drive light comes on, does the hard drive light stay on hard but you can't hear the drive being accessed?? If so it is pointing towards a hardware fault.

If you can a spare hard drive (or can borrow one) put a clean install of Win2k on it with NO other software (no games, work apps or anything) and test run the machine like that, by what you say it shouldn't take long to see if it locks up. If it still locks up, again it points towards hardware. New Zealand, a great place to visit.

http://www.southland.org.nz

 

[biggiedave]

video driver. or card update drivers

 

[bellins1]

Hi,

That power supply problem you were suggesting... I have the same gut feeling that's what it might be, although it might be a serial into a ps2 keyboard problem also. I've checked the hardware monitor in the BIOS to check the voltages and temperatures. The only voltage that seemed to be fluctuating was the "+12v" which went from 12.608 to 12.672v. The system temperature was 89 degrees Fahrenheit, and the CPU temp was 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Does this seem like an ok working temperature? That was about 10-15 min worth of run time from a cold start. I'm going to check that again after it's been running for a good hour, then two hours.

But the drivers were all updated with Windows updater.

When the light comes on, it accesses the floppy drive first, and I hear it spinning the drive. Then, it accesses the hard drive, and I'm not sure if it spins or not, because right at the immediate point, it freezes.

But it hasn't been freezing like that anymore, now it's more of an intermittent thing. I had it on yesterday for about 1/2 hour, then it froze. And that was in the morning. When it froze like 15 times in 2 hours, it was around 9:30 pm. So, I'm still wondering about that power or lack thereof possibility.

I'm getting ready to format the c partition again and put a clean install on again. I have ruled out the operating system though, because on my other pc, I gave it a new install also, and went through the same steps, and found it only to freeze one application one time, not even the whole machine. So, I'm thinking, it must be a hardware problem.

As for RAM, I bought new RAM and put it in there when I replaced the mobo, cpu and hd. It's a 256mb and 128mb(old) sticks, both 133mhz. I think they're working, but I did hear a buzzing sound one time during an install right between the sdram and ddr slot locations on the mother board during a freeze up. It just froze like that, buzzing. ... strange.

One final thought, ... and this sounds like a stupid question, but I bet it's a good possibility... I'm using a serial keyboard, which I converted into a ps-2 kbd by plugging in a little kb connector at the port. When I reinstall windows, I'm going to use a real ps-2 kbd and see what that does. That might mean it could be a IRQ problem, right?

Thanks for helping me... This has been such a frustrating problem.

Steve

 

[bellins1]

That's another thing that tells me it might be either a power problem, or a keyboard problem.

When I went to BestBuy, they couldn't find anything wrong with it. So, it's got to be due to something in it's local environment specific to it's location.

It ran fine at BestBuy, but I bring it home, and the only thing that has changed is the connection to the:

Keyboard
mouse
monitors
power
cable modem(another good possibility)
LAN connection(another good possibility)
speakers

So, I'm going to eliminate the serial to ps2 mouse, and the connection to the lan and cable modem, although I'm leaving the nic cards inside.

And that will point to the power basically, right?
If so, someone please confirm...

Thanks,

Steve

 

[bellins1]

correction:

that's a serial to ps-2 keyboard that I'm going to get rid of and use a straight ps-2 keyboard with no converter...

sorry

 

[stormcrowe]

What kind of error msgs are logged in the events monitor? You can check them from the settings > control panel > Administrative tools > event viewer.

My sytem has the same problems with random lockups. The event viewer logs it as a "Network Address Translator (NAT)" problem. I have tried numerous things and still haven't tracked down the source of the problem yet.

 

[iono]

Hi - had similar problem with modem installed - removed modem and installed another - check bios settings (I had to enable pnp OS and auto update ESCD
hope this helps

 

[bellins1]

Hi All,

I swapped out a serial kb with a ps2 keyboard, now when it freezes, i've noticed that I still have mouse movement, everything else is frozen though.

I'm ordering a new 400w power supply with case to see if that's the problem. Hopefully, that will rule out a lack of power and and shorting problems. A technician at a local shop said AMD K7 takes a lot of power, with the k7 taking 60w on it's own.

The event viewer looks fairly good, except:

I got a lot of "file replacement attempted on protected files":
ksinterf.ax
ksdata.ax
ksvpintf.ax
ksclock.ax
psapi.dll
vbajet32.dll

I had run norton windows doctor, and found a lot of ActiveX/COM errors, but it fixed them all. It's still been freezing up a lot.

It's got a cable modem, so I can't change that out. All it has is a agp ati 7500 video card, nic/snd cards are integrated into the motherboard.

System Temperature usually = 86-89 deg F
CPU Temp usually = 96-114 deg F
A few voltages flop around a little, but not more than .015 difference, maybe .02 sometimes.

But I've been sitting here troubleshooting why I can't make a GHOST image or use Windows Updater for more than hour, and it hasn't crashed/froze once. ARRGGGHHH, it's so intermittent.


OK,..I'm starting to hear a lot of data laboring to go through the motherboard, either near the memory or hard drive, so before this crashes... I'm going to send it...

Hope someone has a good idea for me...

Thanks,
Steve

 

[bellins1]

for some reason, i can't use windows updater (cannot display page, when i click on update) or norton ghost for backup (internal error 19080 inconsistency error)...

And last night on it's chkdsk run... it took almost an hour to crawl through the file and free space verifications...

Why me?

 

[Goha]

I had a similar problem with my Win 98. I went throught the whole shabang deal. Lucky I had Tech support to assist me but this was the end result FYI...

I replaced the RAM and the Motherboard (pre-cautionary measure). the problem was with the RAM. It was faulty. I Could not log in the pc after the ctrl-alt-del screen.

after that and a cleen install the computer was fit as a fiddle!

Hope my experience helps.



and may the force be with you.......

 

[bellins1]

Thanks for helping.

I've given it a clean install and replaced most everything except the pwrsply and the case, cd rom drive, fd, that's it..... I just ordered the case and ps... hope it's a power problem...

I've been surfing the internet and running applications for a good 8 hours now, with no problems...it's just so intermittent.

One thing that bothers me though is not being able to access windows updater due to "Cannot Display Page" error.

I'm trying to figure that one out, but it looks like the protected files that were being replaced in the event viewer may or may not have anything to do with it... just not sure... Since I just did a clean install a few days ago, I think I might try repairing any missing files by doing a windows 2000 repair on the hard drive... maybe that will replace the missing files... and allow me to run updater... Norton DD seems to work ok though..hmm.. I think I'm about out of options...

But I really appreciate all of you giving me some suggestions though... Thanks a lot...

Steve

 

[Guest_imported]

Man, after reading this thread, I have to say we are in the same boat. We have almost the same config. After reading several posts from several forums, and seeing LOTS of others with the same problems, I think I know the problem. I believe it is either the K7V series motherboards or AMD CPU's over 1 gig. I have a great setup, but if I had it to do again, I'd spend the extra money and go Intel. Anybody want to buy a good fast strong computer? (that hangs up a lot)

 

[Goha]

I dont know i have an intel 500 mhz P3 processor

 

[videobruce]

How about heat?

Take the HSF off the processor clean off the old thermal paste, reapply some new paste and reseat the HSF and try it again.

Disconnect all of your cables and reseat each one, both ends,. especially the HD's. Do the same for the memory sticks.

Try a larger PS

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi Bellins1,

I am in a similar boat, with all the crashing stuff, been like this fora good week and a half! Have an XP 1800+, asus a7a266-e motherboard with 2 x 256mb ddr samsung, maxtor 6l080j4 80gb HD, Teac cd-w524e 24x cdrw, Matshita dvd-rom, Nvidia GeForce 3 Ti 200, Creative SB Audigy running windows 2000 pro.
Man it freezes when it likes, sometimes when i am using cool edit pro, sometimes IE, Sometimes dreamweaver, i don't think it matters what applications. It just freezes, absolutly no control, no mouse movement, no control alt del responses nothing, the only solution is to reset. I suspect it may be to do with the ram as it seems to happen when i am using apps that are using the ram up, although monitoring the ram, does not seem to be effected that much.
My temps are reasonable 53c cpu temp 23c case temp as far as i know. Been checking the v readings and seen nothing unusual. Although we downloaded all the latest drives bios etc. I thought maybe it would be better to go back a few versions to see if that has an effect. Heard some where to take the ram out and change them around, did this and it didn't freeze all night, until the next day and i decided to start messing with some wav files.
Have already re-installed windows once and re partitioned the hard drive from the initial factory set up. Thinking about sending it back to the company i bought it from and say to the FIX IT! Its all under warenty and stuff but it's good to get to know how it all works so that you don't have to waste time sending it to and fro. But in this instance i think it may have to be done. Thought that it might be a motherboard issue. But as i am no expert i cannot safely say what i think it is.
Will keep you posted as to my progress as well.

 

[bellins1]

Hey Harshian,

Sorry to hear you're in the same boat... But what do you send back? I've done replaced everything except the darn case,ps,cd,fd... I've about had it with this thing... I've been buying all new parts for it, and replacing them to still find out I have the problem.

I can't wait to get the pwr sply and case... If it still does it after that... Then that's it... I'm getting a Dell...

Just kidding..(although, I haven't decided yet whether I am or not)...

And thanks VideoBruce... I'm going to try to reseat everything also... I'm thinking if the new case and ps doesn't work, then maybe I'll try swapping mother motherboards, hd, ram, and cpu...see what that does...

Any how, I'll let y'all know how my progression regresses also...

Thanks for the help,

Steve