Windows Xp freezing

[eXoduis]

sigh.. the all knowing exoduis posts again! erm sorry.. i meant to say: I had this problem on my Akoya Laptop som e time ago... and the problem was major over heating... make sure all fans are clean.. make sure it can have fresh air too.. you dont want to thappen to your pc what happened to my akoya which is basically burning down and ruining my best book :o

I had HDD trouble too.. gut your pc and check its innars *ahem wheres me manners?* , unplug the hard drive and grahpic card / any movable componant and fully dust out the innards.. ok?

[DarkVVolfV]

@ eXoduis

 

i will look though, clean it out and make sure all the fans are working

 

@ nosisab

 

i had a desktop utility to check it

 

"intel desktop utilities"

 

but there was an error and i had to reinstall it

 

also not sure if this is related

 

but it keeps coming up with usb device not recognized on the start bar

its annoying and wont go away

 

@ csgators

 

ram seems fine, its all there

 

 

 

Problem seems to be getting worse, my comp now has a life expectency of no less than 30minutes - 45 minutes and then freezes

it is getting REALLY annoying

 

seems like this is a big problem for alot of people for xp

[eXoduis]

dust EVERY port..

 

i actually just thought of that one.. maybe a virus? Ill try to get LHammonds to help.. he knows more

[bben46]

It could be a power supply problem. Be sure the power supply is clean and the fan is running. Then, if you have any extra stuff in the computer - extra Hard drive, unused modem card, floppy drive, any usb devices that you can run without or an add on audio card try removing or unplugging them for troubleshooting. If you have an older lower power video card available, you may try putting it in instead of the one you have. It will need the drivers changed so try the other stuff first.

[Fonger]

does this problem only happen when you are connected to the internet

 

and as a second issue

 

are you using Internet Explorer.

 

I ask these 2 questions because a friend had exactly the same problem on a Windows 7 (or was it Vista) desktop

 

and the answer was yes to both!!

[LHammonds]

If you actually "formatted" your hard drive and laid down a fresh install of WinXP (not upgrade on top of existing XP), then I'd say you have a hardware problem (are you overclocking anything?). This, of course, assumes you experienced the same problem before installing things such as print drivers, MS Office, Anti-Virus, DVD software, etc. I would also hope you had your computer disconnected from the Internet while you were re-installing to avoid any nasty bugs being delivered direct to your PC (unless you have a hardware firewall to prevent attacks).

 

The problems experienced sound like a core hardware problem such as memory or CPU. I don't think a failing hard drive would do this (locking up the mouse). But unless you have spare parts laying around, you are not going to have an easy time determining which part is failing.

 

Right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage" so you can access Device Manager and see if any system components are disabled, have broken drivers or are red-flagged as having a problem. If you install an OS from scratch, you typically need to load the motherboard and video card drivers for everything to work correctly (before you start installing apps and performing updates, etc.)

 

Something else you might want to try is downloading the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, make a bootable CD and start the PC with Ubuntu from the CD drive (not to install Ubuntu) in order to see if it runs OK. If (and that's a big if) Ubuntu can start up and not have problems detecting your hardware, see if you can run it and several apps that come with it to see if the freezing continues. This can also be a test to see if you are experiencing a true hardware error or a Windows driver/configuration problem.

 

The easiest hardware test is RAM. Typically we use 2 or more sticks in a system. If you have 4 sticks of RAM, try pulling out 2 sticks and see if the problem continues...if it does, replace the existing 2 sticks with the ones you pulled out and see if the problem continues...if it does, it might not be one of the RAM sticks (or simply more than one RAM stick having a problem)

 

After the RAM swap, I'd pull ever expansion board I have out of the system (audio, network, etc.) and see if the problem continues. Sometimes a simple re-seat of the expansion boards can fix a glitchy problem.

 

You need to run diagnostic tests on each of your components:

 

RAM diagnostic (memtest86)

Hard drive diagnostic (depends on your hard drive manufacturer)

Network card

Sound card

Video card (can use DirectX diagnostics in addition to mfg diag...just run "dxdiag")

Motherboard/CPU

 

Check this link to a page that has a bit more detail about the above: Diagnose XP

 

Also, if you played around with your BIOS settings in the recent past, you might want to go back in there and tell it to load manufacturer defaults to see if that clears up the problem.

 

EDIT: bben has a good point about the power supply unit (PSU)...if it is failing, it could cause all kinds of problems. If it does not have enough juice to run your hardware, removing hardware such as expansion boards and hard drives might allow the PSU to work without being overloaded...keep this in mind while trouble-shooting.

 

EDIT #2: Moving this topic to the appropriate "System Advisor" forum.

LHammonds

[DarkVVolfV]

@ exoidus

 

cant possibly be a virus as i completely reformatted and reinstalled my operating system

 

will dust and clean and get back to you

 

@bben

 

yeah ill check the power supply, dust clean it and make sure its not overheating and ill get back to you

 

 

 

@ fonger

 

nope, dont use internet explorer, i use mozilla firefox

 

also ill try disconnecting and see if it still freezes

 

@ LHammonds

 

nope, im not overclocking anything

 

yeah got an active firewall and im sure no bugs or anything got onto my computer when i was reinstalling

 

nothing was disabled in the device manager but the only problem i could find was the usb device not recoqnized problem, its annoying problem and im not sure if they are connected

 

all the usb ports work fine and the drivers are installed so not sure whats wrong there

 

also i got 2gb of ram, thats how much im supposed to have

 

ill check how many sticks i have and get back to you

 

also havent played around with my bios settings

 

also when i reinstalled my computer and reformatted the power supply was changed as well as a few other things

 

thanks for the ideas ill look around and get back to you

 

thanks

[LHammonds]

My gut feeling is a motherboard problem but I'm hoping it is just RAM...which you can isolate by trial-n-error (pulling out sticks)

 

LHammonds

[eXoduis]

dang if its the motherboard.. your in it deep http://thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/Dark/confused.gif

[DarkVVolfV]

havent had a look at the ram yet but im hoping not a motherboard problem

 

on a related note

 

loaded it up to the desktop and then it froze, i tried to reset it but it wouldnt boot

 

kept saying no bootable device found insert and then press any key

 

i turned it off cleaned the dust out and now it works fine again

 

also all the fans are working