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Computer Freezes, Diagnosis?

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9 replies

by im_it1234

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I have an AMD 750 mhz, 768RAM, 1 20gig IDE HD & 1 17 Gig SCSI HD. I run XP professional off of the IDE and Kubuntu 7.10 off of the SCSI. I have just reformatted the drives and installed clean compies of both Kutbuntu and XP. My compy will stay up for maybe 2 days in either operating system and then it freezes. No error messages, just frozen. If I restart it works fine again for a couple of days. Now originally thought it was an operating system issue but since I started from scratch it would seem that is not the problem. I also have checked the HDs for errors, made sure all connections are good, pluged the system into different outlets.

My diagnosis at this point is that I have bad RAM. Anyone have experience with this and how to diagnose if it is the RAM besides going thorough the tedious process of pulling 1 chip out at a time and seeing what happens? Is there anyway I can easily diagnose hardware issues? Your help is much appreciated. Thanks!

Amit

9 replies

by cg it

an controller not working properly, erratic power supply output, a program consuming lots of processor resources, I'd think its processor usage that's freezing up the computer.

if you have $500 or $600 USD laying around, go buy a new Dell dual core. your old Athlon processor probably is at the limit of its endurance.

by im_it1234

Old computer which I use as a "test" machine. I was just trying to see if I could salvage it. It is sitting around doing nothing so I made it into a media center for the living room. I have a couple of more update machines. Never thought about processor usage.

by cg it

XP search indexer oftem chews up processor resources. I personally turn off the desktop search and also disable the service.

sometimes applications cause a memory leak which will freeze up the computer. Windows Media Player visualizations can do this. The Bliss visualization for Media Player 10 was notorius for this.

Back to the search index chewing up processor resources. There was a time when many XP SP2 users were experiencing 50% processor usage even when they weren't doing anything on the computer. This caused some to freeze up. a reboot fixes the problem but after a few days, the computer freezes again.

Here's a MS Help and Support Link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899869/en-us

Another possibility is the page file is to small. Might also consider increasing virtual memory. Though Windows often does a decent job managing virtual memory, it's possible what's available is not enough. It's also possible to have to large a page file. see the MS Support article above.

by wesley.chin

How old is the machine? has the power supply ever been changed? Are all of the patches applied? is there a BIOS update available?

by im_it1234

Never really have changed the power supply. You really think it could be a power supply issue? Machine is old I was just trying to salvage it and use it as a test machine. I have updated the BIOS and all the patches suggested by MSFT or Compaq. Seems like it is time to put the old boy down. I will still try some RAM tests and if that dos not work I will clean gut and send it for recycling.

by wesley.chin

there has been an instance that I have seen where the machine still booted but then died afterwards due to the internal battery.

by dumphrey

for checking RAM. At best they are only so so valid, so if they find a big problem, then you can be sure its real, its the intermittent ram issues they have difficulty finding. Memtest86+ is a tiny download, and should run at least 24 hours to be effective. A few memory errors is common. But anything over say 20 in 24 hours is suspect (I would even gues s20 is high).

The old standby UBCD has a ton of hardware diagnostics. Worth checking out.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

I would also look at IRQ settings and heat issues.

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