Pc Locking Up

**boxturt** · July 1, 2003

For about 5 days my pc has been acting very strangely. Locking up for no apparent reason. Nothing predictable or anything "patterned". In other words it just happens randomly. Doesn't matter if I have any browser open or not. Doesn't matter if Norton is disabled - in fact I uninstalled it. Doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing or running.

I even did a system restore to two days prior to this happening and it didn't help.

Also appears to be rewriting my settings, specifically 'primary slave', 'cd-rom', power and who knows what else. This part bothers me quite a bit.

I was suspecting something running in the background I can't see - I've checked everything that's supposed to be there and it looks good. (is there a program to check this? I thought I'd seen one or ten but can't find it now)

I have WinME and AMD Athlon 1GHz, 256ram.

Any input here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks folks!

**TCH-JimE** · July 1, 2003

Hi,

First of all, press ctrl-alt-del (just once!) and close EVERYTHING apart from explorer and then sit back and wait and see if your computer fouls up again.

let me know how that goes

Also look in msconfig (start>run>msconfig) and goto startup tab, unclick anything you dont want to start up.

Make sure you have done a very thorough hard disk scan, spy scan and virus scan

Jim

**boxturt** · July 1, 2003

Thank you Jim. It will be tough to determine results of this but I did do some things and just learned a lot.

Found something in Startup - xl.exe which turns out to be a Norton thing to prevent reverse engineering and is beta on the free downloads. Shut that off.

Also found things that have always been there and didn't need to be.

Much info I got from www.answersthatwork.com Click on Task List. So I just went over all my items. Very suprising.

I won't have any time today to see the outcome of all this but I'll certainly post back when anything does or does not happen.

I also set all the system settings back to default in the set-up screen

Edited July 1, 2003 by boxturt

**boxturt** · July 2, 2003

Still does it but it doesn't freeze for as long, just a second or so. I rebooted and went into settings and restored them to default again and it this point it seems ok.

So it appears something is rewriting my boot settings.

**TCH-JimE** · July 2, 2003

I would disable norton and see what happens

Jim

**boxturt** · July 2, 2003

Was the first thing I did - no change. In fact it seems to be getting worse.

Also my d: \ drive (cd) is not recognized half the time now.

Temperatures are holding around 125f on board and the case at a cozy 73f all within in limits of an AMD Athlon

I've shut off just about everything in msconfig, heck - I'm practically in Safe Mode.

I just don't get it.

Needless to say I've gotten no work done what-so-ever

**leezard** · July 2, 2003

if its locking up and your drives are being recognized off and on, it is more than likely your BIOS, if you can tell me what type of motherboard you have I can help with first clearing the cmos, and see if that helps (you can do this by removing the cmos battery, but it's better to clear it using the jumpers on the motherboard.) If that doesnt work, possibly flashing the bios might help. if THAT doesnt work, the bios chip itself may be bad.

**TCH-JimE** · July 2, 2003

Be careful when flashing bios, make sure you have the right bios to flash with!

Maybe set your bios to auto detect if you have it on static settings at present

Jim

**leezard** · July 2, 2003

Temperatures are holding around 125f on board

I just saw that part, 125f is about 51C (I think) altho that is within the limits of an athalon that is still extremely high for a computer sitting idle. Start runnign a few apps and the temp rises pretty quick. Before doing anything with the bios try this, just take the side panel off your case, take both sides off if you can to get some airflow moving thru it. If you have a small fan or even a big fan that you can set blowing into the case try that.

This is just my opinion, but anything over 45c at idle is to high. Also, sorry bout the celsius conversion, most review sites use celsius as the standard so i just got in the habit of it.

**leezard** · July 2, 2003

make sure you have the right bios to flash with!

if you dont have the right bios, it wont flash anyway...the bios utility checks to make sure it is the correct bios for the otherboard. In 15 years of using a computer i have never had a bad bios flash.

**boxturt** · July 3, 2003

Thank you gentlemen, I appreciate it. While still a bit warm perhaps (52º c , and I do have one side open) the machine has been powered up and running apps for about an hour now with no problem.

I did remove a 4-port USB hub that I just got 2 weeks ago after discovering I had 2 very well hidden and very open ones already.

So far, so good. I will continue "working" this evening and just see what happens . I suspect it's going to happen again before the night is through and when it does I will post some pertinent board numbers and such.

Just wanted to let you guys know your generosity does not go unnoticed

Thanks

**boxturt** · July 3, 2003

Umm, I spoke too soon - about the machine that is. Locked up just as soon as I made my last post. I'm currently running ScanDisk while I type from Missus Turt's machine down the hall.

ScanDisk has started 10 times so it says but it keeps going - now in hour #2. I can't see how anything could be interferring (except for my new-found gremlin) as the pc is in SafeMode and just about everything but explorer and power profile were off anyway.

Sooooo, here's some numbers and "stuff":

CPU - AMD Athlon 1GHz

Mommaboard - Asus A7V-E Socket A Motherboard KT133 Chipset

Papaboard - no, papa's not bored - just annoyed as, well, you know.......

Memory - 256MB PC-133 RAM

Video - NVIDIA GeForce2 64MB

That's all I have in front of me. I really want my machine back, this one's kind of poopy

(don't mind me, just trying to maintain....)

**boxturt** · July 5, 2003

Since I removed the 4-port USB hub and ran ScanDisk (again) it seems to be fine for the last 2 days. Sure hope it stays fine

Still running a bit warm perhaps so I may install another fan. Correction - I will let the guy who put this beast together install it for me Naughty

**TCH-JimE** · July 7, 2003

Hi,

Sounds like you have one of the old Thunderbird Athlons, these babies run hotter then a car engine when doing nothing. I would get a whopping great huge fan on it a case fan to boot, either that or upgrade with a cheap motherboard which can take a barton core althon XP chip

Jim

**boxturt** · July 7, 2003

Good Afternoon Jim,

Apparently that is what I have. I even put a desk fan on it (with case cover open) and it only brought it down a couple degrees. I may go ahead and drop a few bucks for that motherboard you mention. Reinstalled System Works (Norton) and still everything has been ok.

Four - port hub for sale -CHEAP!!!!.........j/k

Thanks

**TCH-JimE** · July 7, 2003

Morning Boxturt, my afternoon don't start for another 30 minutes! hehe

I used to have a 900mhz Thunderbird althon on roughly the same motherboard (mine came with Raid support) and in the end, I brought myself a cheap motherboard which could run the latest Althon chips and decent memory/AGP.

However, I would like to point out that come september, the new 64bit chips arrive on the scene. Now they aint going to be cheap, but either you wait around for them to become a bit cheaper (6 months) or you buy a MEGA cheap board because in a years time, it will be out of date anyway!

Also, the new Pentium 4 running at 3.6G Mhz is suppsoed to be ripstoppingly good. Although why would anyone want to spend that much money on it???

Jim

**boxturt** · July 10, 2003

Still acting up. Noticed a coincidence of lock-up happening when using Yahoo IM so I uninstalled.

Although my clock keeps time I am beginning to wonder about the battery again. It's been in there about 3 years now and I've never replaced it..

........and the saga continues -- film at 11...

**TCH-JimE** · July 10, 2003

Hi,

If your clock keeps time, then I would not worry about the battery although replacing it wont cause any major upsets.

Quick thought. Have you got a second cheap hard drive? If you have, bung a simple operating system on it and replace the hard drive. Does it lock up still? This should narrow the field down quite a lot for us

Its the only reason I keep my 3 gig drive around now.

Jim

**boxturt** · July 10, 2003

I suppose I could take the one out of my wife's machine and give it a go, just a little 6gig thing she rarely uses. Good idea.

Of course while I'm in here doing that she'll probably go out in the driveway and dismantle my car transmission :lol:

**TCH-JimE** · July 10, 2003

Hi,

Remember to hide the keys or do it whilst she is out shopping

Jim

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