The_Doctor

*8 This is quite a long one because Im trying to include all relevant information and occurrences. Please bear with it!!


Well a few weeks ago I was having issues with my PC just randomly locking up in an odd way: Most things would start to become unresponsive once I clicked on them (windows of anything) followed by the eventual crash of the one remaining program left working, by which I mean as the locking up happens whatever I seem to be doing at the time keeps working for a little awhile longer but eventually locks up as well.

Usually I would be in Ventrilo or Skype when this happened but as I said i would still be able to communicate for awhile after the freeze began to occur (although in Vent I could not move around or see any changes in the 'talk status" next to peoples' names).

Well, eventually it got to the point where bootups were EXTREMELY slow but eventually working or I'd have to go through several attempts to boot up and login successfully be it in Safe Mode or not. It was down to luck, really and even then how long I could use my terminal was variable. So, coping with this nuisance for about a week the problem got to the point where i would get "Disk Read Error" during bootup and at the peak of the problem a BSOD (never happened to me before). This clued me into thinking it was an HDD problem. More evidence pointing to this conclusion was the fact that the drive seemed to not know that my Vista OS was installed on it which meant if it got to the point where I had to do a Sys Restore for whatever reason, it would be impossible to bounce back from it.

Sidenote: Unfortunately i lost my Retail disc of Vista ult 64 so I've had to use a burned backup from a friend's friend with a key i was given so I sometimes wondered if this type of OS use created a detection conflict. No idea about this since the disc was lost during my first PC overhaul in september 08.

Anyway, the problems peaked out when during bootup it said that it was missing a System Registry File or something of the like which prevented any sort of recovery. This happened once before but I had my disc then and I had to do a Restore to fix it, but this time there was no chance of that and I ran right through Ideas A-Q on how to fix the problem myself.

Hopefully you guys are still with me here (its quite an essay, yes) because I've replaced the old crappy HDD that failed after 8 months with a very nice WD one and i added 4gb of high-end RAM for my gaming habits to fix the issue.

Well I'm on day 3 here with the new drive and ram and it's been all good but suddenly i had almost the same problem where stuff just locked up but my Ventrilo kept working. The strange thing this time was that my screen went completely black and i wasn't able to use any keyboard shortcuts to end anything. I just had total blackness on my screen with my mouse floating around but I retained the ability to speak on Ventrilo. So i hit restart but then it locked up halfway through so I powered down a moment and rebooted again and successfully made it here.

So basically I have no idea what the problem is. Honestly im reeeally hoping it was just a fluke and I know this post is a bit premature but after shelling out the bucks for premium hardware to fix a Code Red issue and this happening all of a sudden I guess i'm in a bit of a state of panic.


But the screen going black and whatnot repeating itself with my new hardware doesnt seem like a freak occurence, but i have no idea what coulda caused that. between all the brainstorming with friends we came up with:


- Well I'm bad with OSs and whatnot but maybe because of the source of my current OS this issue is occuring?

- I have 4 sticks of RAM installed, the 2x2 new ones and the 2x1 old ones (same maker and clock of 1066).

- Overheating damage hurt something else? No clue, probably not. Well ventilated and intake is strong enough for exhaust.

- The old RAM sticks are damaged? Actually this might not be a factor at all, tested each stick before buying the new gear and the problems persisted.

- The graphics card? because it seems like my display fails and nothing updates on the screen but since I can could speak on Ventrilo for awhile longer (even this time) I just thought maybe. That whole thing with the screen going pitchblack is also pretty worrying.

- Some kind of motherboard issue? noo clue.

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Thats all I got for relevant information. Anything about BIOS and all that craziness is beyond me. Hardware is a headache for me as well since Im more of a software guy (minus repairing OSs).

I was thinking if this happened again Id keep checking back here for your inputs because my only other idea was to try to find my long-lost 32-bit XP disc and install that but id reeeally rather not need to. But if I must, I will.

This is all in hopes of not having to shell out for a professional Diagnostic-Repair since thats heavy on price for me right now.

I hope i posted this in the right forum but it seems to me like this could go in 3 of them since im not entirely sure of the problem... should i post in the other possibly-relevant ones?

Anyway, even good thoughts are appreciated but if you think you have a solution pleeeeease let me know here or via E-Mail.

dai

what are you running
video card
cpu
m/board
ram
power supply
brand
wattage

check the listings in the bios for voltages and temperatures and post them

The_Doctor

GFX Card: Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT
CPU: Intel Dual Core (2.53ghz)
MB: ASRock somethin-or-another
RAM: 2x2 800 OCZ Reapers 2x1 800 OCZ Reapers
Power Supply: Shrug. It's an upgrade over the last one that blew up, strong one.
Brand: Custom
Wattage: Shrug

* Don't see an edit anywhere, but i mistakingly wrote the RAM clocked at 1066 in the original post; they are 800s.

dai

look at the label on the psu for the details

is all the ram rated at the same voltage,check if you have scope to lift it

run memtest on the ram 1 stick at a time

http://www.memtest.org/

Tyree

The copy of the Vista disc "could" cause some problems.
In addition to dai's suggestions, try removing the two 2X1 RAM sticks. Filling all of the RAM slots can cause issues and 4GB is all you need anyway.

The_Doctor

Well the freezes were frequent enough during 1 hour that removing the 2x1 would yield a difference if they were the issue.

Fluke or not I seem to be okay for awhile here... hopefully it's not my Vista because the lost XP disc is an OEM itself.. actually i think maybe this backup of Vista is too I've forgotten honestly.

As for the ram, yes they're similar but there was indeed a slight different in the #-#-# clock times and voltages. My BIOS has a flexibility option for this type of thing but who knows maybe removing the 2x1 will help. I had my brother deal with the BIOS nonsense, it escapes me. But for my purposes 4gb seems to be more than sufficient.

If it still occurs the only remaining ideas I would have are that its my OS or worst case the Motherboard. Probably the OS, seems the obvious choice.

dai

try it with only ram in that the voltages match up

The_Doctor

UPDATE: Well, working with just the 2x2 there seems to be no issues to report, especially after the defrag.

The voltages are probably not a problem because of the flexibility function, but truth-in-fact it would seem the problem lied with one of my 2x1 sticks. Not sure which one but as someone said 4gb is more than enough, even if these new sticks are a mite slower.

Thanks techs appreciate it! I'd kiss ya but I'm just not that type of guy!

dai

glad you have it sorted