First of all it sounds like a virus may be causing this, if you run Antivirus software and think this is not the case, then It may be that its time for a fresh install of windows. When was the last time you formated and reinstalled windows?
Random Lockups - Please Help!
Hey, ive had this PC custom built for about 18 months now, and have only upgraded the HD about 6 months ago, but recently (over the past few months) i have noticed that my computer randomly locks up. This has actually been happening over the past 12 months, but it was very rare back then, only happening when i was transferring large files and playing large playlists of mp3s at the same time, and my PC would lock up, and a high pitched squeal would come from the speakers. It also used to lock up on the login screen, but a restart or 2 usually fixed this.
Recently though, these problems have only become much more common (many times per day), and more severe. I now find that my PC will lockup at complete random times, even when it is idle, if im playing games, listening to mp3s, doing work, or even just booting up. It even happens well before i have even reached the windows bootup process, and now causing my PC to not start at all unless it is given a good whack (seems to work sometimes), or leaving it off for several minutes. I'll turn my PC on, and it will just appear to go into standby mode, and the monitor switches off, as well as the rest of the computer.
And finally, to make matters worse, i find my cd drive (which has worked perfectly up till now) starts ejecting the tray when it boots up, and when i push it back in, it spits it out again, and the LED flashes quickly. The only way to fix this i have found, is to disconnect the power cable leading to the back of the cd drive.
Im really not sure what to do. Im going to be giving my system an overhaul soon, so if i could find out what the problems are before then, it would be great. A friend of mine had a similar problem and Compaq told him he needed a new motherboard.
Im running a (custom built) Duron 700, with 128M of Ram, Western Digital 60gig HD (unpartitioned for now), AZ11 1st Mainboard (with onboard sound), 8MB nVidia Vanta-LT AGP, 50X Generic cd-rom, ancient 2x Acer cd-rw, SMC EZ 10/100 network card, and running Win98SE (upgrading to 2k and perhaps linux mandrake in a couple of weeks).
Any help/replies would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Jaymz
Recently though, these problems have only become much more common (many times per day), and more severe. I now find that my PC will lockup at complete random times, even when it is idle, if im playing games, listening to mp3s, doing work, or even just booting up. It even happens well before i have even reached the windows bootup process, and now causing my PC to not start at all unless it is given a good whack (seems to work sometimes), or leaving it off for several minutes. I'll turn my PC on, and it will just appear to go into standby mode, and the monitor switches off, as well as the rest of the computer.
And finally, to make matters worse, i find my cd drive (which has worked perfectly up till now) starts ejecting the tray when it boots up, and when i push it back in, it spits it out again, and the LED flashes quickly. The only way to fix this i have found, is to disconnect the power cable leading to the back of the cd drive.
Im really not sure what to do. Im going to be giving my system an overhaul soon, so if i could find out what the problems are before then, it would be great. A friend of mine had a similar problem and Compaq told him he needed a new motherboard.
Im running a (custom built) Duron 700, with 128M of Ram, Western Digital 60gig HD (unpartitioned for now), AZ11 1st Mainboard (with onboard sound), 8MB nVidia Vanta-LT AGP, 50X Generic cd-rom, ancient 2x Acer cd-rw, SMC EZ 10/100 network card, and running Win98SE (upgrading to 2k and perhaps linux mandrake in a couple of weeks).
Any help/replies would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Jaymz
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yeah ive run antivirus and plenty of scandisks and defrags etc
i thought it was a windows problem (last install was over 12 months ago), and geared up to do an install of Win2K until the crashes started to happen before windows even loads, so this kinda points to a hardware problem i think.. motherboard or power supply ive been told
i thought it was a windows problem (last install was over 12 months ago), and geared up to do an install of Win2K until the crashes started to happen before windows even loads, so this kinda points to a hardware problem i think.. motherboard or power supply ive been told
You have a point, but 12 months is a long time to go without a fresh install, especially for powerusers such as it sounds you are.
My system starts screwing up about every 4 months, and Im forced to reinstall.
So, it may be just that. But it could also be a harware problem, I'll let one of our other guys try and answer that, as Im more an OS guy. But if you may wanna do the reinstall anyway, who knows, it may clear up the troubles.
My system starts screwing up about every 4 months, and Im forced to reinstall.
So, it may be just that. But it could also be a harware problem, I'll let one of our other guys try and answer that, as Im more an OS guy. But if you may wanna do the reinstall anyway, who knows, it may clear up the troubles.
thanks, im sure to do a fresh install, and hopefully this will fix any problems, but i want to partition my HD before i do this, and just hope that it wont lock up in the process, i'll be using partition magic 7, followed by a fresh install of Win2K on one partition, all my (backed up) data on another, and maybe an install of linux mandrake on a third partition
thanks for your help anyway, i sure hope one of the hardware guys notices the thread lol
thanks for your help anyway, i sure hope one of the hardware guys notices the thread lol
What kind of memory does your system have? Unstable systems with frequently occuring lockups could be caused from different brands of memory installed on the same board.
CD ejecting is weird....defective CD is not out of the question....watch your knee....go into safe mode and see if there is any diffrece...can you get it into safe mode???
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