VividStudios

Hello,

A couple months ago my computer started freezing up randomly. For example I would be working in Photoshop and it would freeze in a very weird way(see photo). The same thing would happen when I'd be watching a video on Break.com or something of that sort. The way it freezes as you can see in the picture is it would become unresponsive to mouse and keyboard, sound would stop. The horizontal boxes would be shaking up and down across the screen. Sometimes also, the screen just goes black.


(the photos were taken with my cell phone, sorry for the quality loss)

I've tried reinstalling XP twice. Nothing. I've bought windows xp pro and installed that. Nothing. I'm pretty sure it's not the monitor either. One time when it was frozen I switched the monitor with my old one and it was frozen in the same way.

I'm running on:

Computer:
Compaq Presario S5000NX
Intel Celeron CPU 2.50GHz 2.49 Ghz, 504 MB of RAM.

System:
Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 2

Please help, this is really stressing me out. Whoever can solve this for me will receive $20.00 US through paypal.

Thanks,
Luc

manic

1st guess video card, 2nd ram. Im leaning toward video. If this helps
keep your 20 bucks,,,lol

crazijoe

I second the video.

MaverickUK

It's a video problem, indefinately. The best thing to do is run memtest96 on your RAM modules (one at a time) for at least three hours and see if it reports any errors, if it does, this would point towards a memory issue. Unplug and reseat your video card to it's current position - also as you have reinstalled your system a few times, this should rule out driver conflictions, although you should make sure this is not a driver issue by running your PC in safe mode - choose option "Safe mode with networking". The resaon i suggest the video drivers is because at a guess, i think you have reinstalled all motherboard drivers as soon as the reinstall of XP was complete, thus not giving your PC time to show up the syptoms without the drivers.

If this does help, i do not want money as a reward, although you could always donate to the TechSupportForum as a gesture of good-will. Let us know how this goes.

Regards,
Nick.

edit: I remember having this problem in the past, although i really do not remember what the issue was - i know it was one of two things; i replaced the video card or i replaced the driver (really cannot remember which).

linderman

please download and run memtest86 as suggested above also download and run Everest Home edition

both of these can be found for free in my signature links

check your temps & voltage readings with everest and post them in here for evaluation by the techs >>>>. check your case fans for dust and proper rpm's ????

too much heat inside your computer box can also produce these side effects especially when pusing your system like video work or gaming does

try your video card in another system and push it with the video app >>>> see if the card remains stable

Fr4665

i third it. its definatly the video im 99.99% sure

crazijoe

This is a low budget system that uses integrated graphics and lacks an AGP slot. These systems used normal cooling solutions for average use. The applications that you are using (i.e. photoshop) may be more that what the graphics can handle and maybe more than what the system can handle. Using intense graphics programs may heat the system up more than normal resulting in some damage because of the lack of sufficiant cooling. All this hard use over time may have taken its toll on the machine and cause premature wear.
You may want to invest in a better graphics solution or a better system since this one is showing its age (10/03)

http://compreviews.about.com/cs/desk...ompS5000nx.htm

linderman

Nice catch C-joe

linderman

My condolences; your needs have out grown your system's capabilities



you may be able to get by; if you add another 512mb memory and open your case and try running it with a house fan blowing into the case; if this helps then you will need to add more case fans to your system to reduce heat! this requires fans mounted at the interior of the case towards the front to bring in fresh air and also add a fan to the rear of the box to exaust out hot air ?

manic

Could add a pci video card, if theres a slot. Power for the lower end
cards is not a issue,and would be head over heals better than onboard.

Kalim

Actually you can run Photoshop etc off even SiS740chipsets with onboard graphics and I run them perfectly with a system much older than VividStudios, 1.3GHz Duron: yes budget buys.

What it looks like is faulty monitor cables, PSU, overheating and definitely your freezing is caused by insufficient RAM. If you are going to try and run any major software you will need about 1GB RAM at least.

To me this looks like overheating along with insufficient RAM.

MaverickUK

Insufficient RAM? I'm pretty sure that this cannot cause the symptoms shown above. Although RAM that is damaged can cause this, infact i think the RAM was the reason i had the problems i posted above. I took it back so many times to the people i bought it off that it is hard to track what i did and when.

Run memtest before anything else, it's surely either a memory or GPU problem.

Kalim

Insufficient RAM/overheating is mentioned for the freezing only.

crazijoe

Overheating was mentioned in my post above. Because the graphics is integrated into the chipset, it can be possible that the northbridge could have had some repercussions because of it. Adding a separate video card could alleviate any problems but it is unknowing what damage has occured.

I am still gearing toward a bad video because of what is being seen on the screen and the combination of freezing OS. If this was me, I would start with a cheap PCI video card.

TattooDaddyGerr

I had the exact same problem with an ATI radeon 9700. Overheated before windows even started up. Thats how bad it got.
Video card must GO!

Rebellion88

I've had the same problem with my old ATi 9550, overheated. Make sure your case is vented well, with intake and exhaust fans. Possibly a PCI fan to suck the heat away from the video card.

Kalim

I've seen many references to GPU while the OP never mentioned having any GPU. The only thing that can be known in terms of video is like crazijoe said: Onboard Intel Extreme 3D Graphics.