It's lockin up all of a sudden

[ephmynus]

Don't know why but the last two days I've come home, my PC has been locked up tighter than the preachers daughter in church. The first day, my dial up connection was on and I thought it might have something to do with that. Today, I closed all programs that were open previously (MSN connection, copy/fax program for Lexmark X83, print icon for Lexmark X83, analogx proxy) and when I came home it was locked up on the Windows XP default screen saver. I've already checked power management and the only option that was set was to turn off the monitors after 20 minutes. I checked heat related issues and the processor is stickin right around 50C at most. Don't really have any other thoughts off the top of my head

Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra
XP 2100+
Maxtor 20GB on SATA as primary
Maxtor 80GB on ATA primary slave
Liteon 32X CDRW on ATA secondary master
512MB Crucial PC2100
AOPEN 300W PS
Gainward Geforce4 TI4200 128mb Golden Sample

[ilovetheusers]

Download and run powermax from maxtor.



50 is kinda hot but it's not going to melt yet.
What's the system temp?
Are the HDD's getting very hot?
Is the vid card getting hot?

It may sound odd but my friend had to remove the sides of his case and put a box fan pointed as his system to keep everything cool (worked too).

[ephmynus]

50C is fine for the XP procs. System temp shows 35-38C Powermax shows no errors reported The video card naturally gets hot but it stays within it's acceptable range. Video cards are cooled with an 80mm fan and they are fine.

[NooNoo]

Run a ram checker? www.simmtester.com - get docmem... there are a couple of others too.

I assume you have the latest motherboard drivers and dets?

[ephmynus]

Thanks for the suggestion Noo but no errors reported. Seems to be fine. Also, I do have the latest Det drivers and I even tried going back to older ones to no avail. I have the latest 4in1 installed as well.

[Trout]

Oddly,
I Went Thru That on 2 similar systems recently.
Memory tested fine,Several of the same BRAND and flavor chips were used.
Though This May or may not apply to your system,
I Found That the problem was DOUBLE Sided Chips~!
Seems Some XP / Motherboard Combos Rufuse To Run Correctly With These.
I Switched To Single Sided Memory Chips,, INSTANTLY No More Lock Ups.
Oddly,, EVERY Chip I Tryd Tested Perfectly, And Worked Perfectly On A Different XP/ Motherboard Combo.
Im Finding More Often Than I Ever Imagined, Memory can be the root of all evil LOL
Trout

[ephmynus]

Originally posted by Trout
Oddly,
I Went Thru That on 2 similar systems recently.
Memory tested fine,Several of the same BRAND and flavor chips were used.
Though This May or may not apply to your system,
I Found That the problem was DOUBLE Sided Chips~!
Seems Some XP / Motherboard Combos Rufuse To Run Correctly With These.
I Switched To Single Sided Memory Chips,, INSTANTLY No More Lock Ups.
Oddly,, EVERY Chip I Tryd Tested Perfectly, And Worked Perfectly On A Different XP/ Motherboard Combo.
Im Finding More Often Than I Ever Imagined, Memory can be the root of all evil LOL
Trout

Thanks for the suggestion but I have tried each one individually (one is single sided, the other is double) The double is the original one I have had for about a year without any problems running XP just fine all this time.

[jimmm33]

Here are a few longshots worth trying.

Scandisk, defrag, check for virus, run Spybot S&D. Also swap the power supply with a known good one.

[grandam_99]

have you tried to change the power supply and maybe give it a burn in test.

[ephmynus]

This is a known good power supply that has been in used for over 4 months. I have swapped it out with 2 other known good ones since yesterday and I got a lock up on one. I'll check the other one when I get home.

[Dankman420]

Common issue w/ Xp loads not having SP1 or DirectX8.1b. W/o both of these the default XP screensaver will freeze the machine. (Usually)

Update to SP1 or try DX 9.0.

[MacGyver]

Agreed with Dankman, I had some problems with the Windows XP Screen savers (even after updating to SP1), so I turned them off and I'm using Power Management to turn off the monitor instead. Saves electricity, too!

[grandam_99]

I would also check for the latest driver for the video card. It could also be the motherboard as soon as the system gets hot it frezzes, there was a certain place on the board that was not soldered right

[trippinfool]

I have had the same issue with XP and a VIA chipset. I think Dankman420 has the goods. Try the SP1 update and DX9. MS also has an article on this.