Intermittent lockups, need troubleshooting advice
in [Asus]
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From: John on 21 May 2010 20:19 My computer has begun to exhibit some seriously flaky behavior lately and I'm looking for some help in trying to figure out what's wrong. The system is an M2N-SLI Deluxe with 2 GB RAM and an Athlon 64X2, running Windows XP. It's about three years old and has been running fine for all those three years except for a PSU failure about a year ago. (I replaced the PSU.) There's been no new hardware added recently and the only new software is some Yahoo games that my wife DLs, plays for a while, and then removes. I run regular malware scans and I've had no indication of any infection. The problem that I'm seeing is intermittent and seemingly-random lockups. By this I mean that the computer stops responding to mouse clicks and keystrokes. The cursor still moves when I move the mouse, but that's all. When this happens I have to do a hard reset, and when I do it reboots and everything is fine again. This started happening about 2-3 weeks ago, and it seems to happen at random times and under no particular circumstances. Sometimes it's fine for a week, other times it'll lock up several times in a day. Today the problem got worse. It locked up and I reset it as usual, and this time it failed to boot. It beeped once (as it normally does) and displayed the first few lines of the POST screen (identifying the board and the BIOS, I think) and then just sat there. I reset again and this time it booted normally and it's once again running fine. And here's another observation: On a couple of occasions, I was working on our other computer (the "good" one) and found that I had no Internet access. I walked downstairs to the "bad" computer and found that it was in its locked-up state. I unplugged the bad computer from the router and the good computer suddenly had its internet connection back again. In attempting to diagnose the problem, I've run the MS memory test (in extended test mode) for about three hours without failure and I've run chkdsk, also without failure. So what the heck does all of this point to? Does anyone have any suggestions either about what might be wrong, or what else to check? TIA John Reply-to address is real
From: TJ on 22 May 2010 04:13 try a live cd of any linux distribution (ie: fedora, ubuntu...) and play with it some time and see if it hangs like windows. If it doesnt you can think about a fresh windows installation and if linux hangs it maybe a hardware issue. --- TJ :O)
From: Homer Jay Simpson on 22 May 2010 19:58 "John" <fakeaddress(a)nowhere.com> wrote in message news:hl8ev5l84cnl3pleigg6qmvgpgpk916o3l(a)4ax.com... > My computer has begun to exhibit some seriously flaky behavior lately > and I'm looking for some help in trying to figure out what's wrong. > > The system is an M2N-SLI Deluxe with 2 GB RAM and an Athlon 64X2, > running Windows XP. It's about three years old and has been running > fine for all those three years except for a PSU failure about a year > ago. (I replaced the PSU.) There's been no new hardware added > recently and the only new software is some Yahoo games that my wife > DLs, plays for a while, and then removes. I run regular malware scans > and I've had no indication of any infection. > > The problem that I'm seeing is intermittent and seemingly-random > lockups. By this I mean that the computer stops responding to mouse > clicks and keystrokes. The cursor still moves when I move the mouse, > but that's all. When this happens I have to do a hard reset, and when > I do it reboots and everything is fine again. > > This started happening about 2-3 weeks ago, and it seems to happen at > random times and under no particular circumstances. Sometimes it's > fine for a week, other times it'll lock up several times in a day. > > Today the problem got worse. It locked up and I reset it as usual, > and this time it failed to boot. It beeped once (as it normally does) > and displayed the first few lines of the POST screen (identifying the > board and the BIOS, I think) and then just sat there. I reset again > and this time it booted normally and it's once again running fine. > > And here's another observation: On a couple of occasions, I was > working on our other computer (the "good" one) and found that I had no > Internet access. I walked downstairs to the "bad" computer and found > that it was in its locked-up state. I unplugged the bad computer from > the router and the good computer suddenly had its internet connection > back again. > > In attempting to diagnose the problem, I've run the MS memory test (in > extended test mode) for about three hours without failure and I've run > chkdsk, also without failure. > > So what the heck does all of this point to? Does anyone have any > suggestions either about what might be wrong, or what else to check? > > TIA > > John > > Reply-to address is real Have you looked at your System Event log in the Event Viewer to determine if there were any Error events and the Source of that error? It might be a Service that has failed to start. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news(a)netfront.net ---
From: Peter Johnson on 23 May 2010 07:48 On Fri, 21 May 2010 20:19:20 -0400, John <fakeaddress(a)nowhere.com> wrote: >My computer has begun to exhibit some seriously flaky behavior lately >and I'm looking for some help in trying to figure out what's wrong. > I think I'd be inclined to look at the PSU.
From: Bob F on 23 May 2010 15:25
John wrote: > My computer has begun to exhibit some seriously flaky behavior lately > and I'm looking for some help in trying to figure out what's wrong. > > The system is an M2N-SLI Deluxe with 2 GB RAM and an Athlon 64X2, > running Windows XP. It's about three years old and has been running > fine for all those three years except for a PSU failure about a year > ago. (I replaced the PSU.) There's been no new hardware added > recently and the only new software is some Yahoo games that my wife > DLs, plays for a while, and then removes. I run regular malware scans > and I've had no indication of any infection. > > The problem that I'm seeing is intermittent and seemingly-random > lockups. By this I mean that the computer stops responding to mouse > clicks and keystrokes. The cursor still moves when I move the mouse, > but that's all. When this happens I have to do a hard reset, and when > I do it reboots and everything is fine again. > > This started happening about 2-3 weeks ago, and it seems to happen at > random times and under no particular circumstances. Sometimes it's > fine for a week, other times it'll lock up several times in a day. > > Today the problem got worse. It locked up and I reset it as usual, > and this time it failed to boot. It beeped once (as it normally does) > and displayed the first few lines of the POST screen (identifying the > board and the BIOS, I think) and then just sat there. I reset again > and this time it booted normally and it's once again running fine. > > And here's another observation: On a couple of occasions, I was > working on our other computer (the "good" one) and found that I had no > Internet access. I walked downstairs to the "bad" computer and found > that it was in its locked-up state. I unplugged the bad computer from > the router and the good computer suddenly had its internet connection > back again. > > In attempting to diagnose the problem, I've run the MS memory test (in > extended test mode) for about three hours without failure and I've run > chkdsk, also without failure. > > So what the heck does all of this point to? Does anyone have any > suggestions either about what might be wrong, or what else to check? Have you thouroughly cleaned all the heatsinks and fans, and checked all the fans are operating? This should include the display card. Try running the memory test program memtest86+. Do you let it send crash info to microsoft? Sometime my system has come back with useful info in response after a crash. |