Hardlocking issue

[SecretSquirrel]

Oritey...for some reason, probably the RAM, my machine hardlocks randomly, sometimes after a minute, sometimes an hour...

Originally, I thought it was ICQ, then the CPU (slowed down to 133, went better for a little while...then started up again), changed video drivers, slowed video down, uninstalled/closed pretty much every program I run, and still it shoots the poot.

There may be a slight chance of it being heat related...but I doubt that, if it was, its definately a CPU thing.

Also, I redid the bridges of the CPU, changed the AS3 heatspoo, cleaned the fins of the heatsink etc...next I will spit on the machine and wait for the sparks.

Or replace the CPU.

Anyone have similar issues? Ideas? PLEASE??

Thanks

[SilverPriest]

Since u asked for ideas:
First one off the top of my head, it's a long shot, but have u checked for viruses?

U have multiple sticks of ram?
Try taking one out, and testing them in different slots, then try other one if said multi stick applies ;)

Got anymore ram to test it with?

Also, are your PSU rails in spec?
PSU fan going?

[SecretSquirrel]

Scanned for virii, one stick of 512mb...I have a 128mb stick, but thats currently visiting friends :/ And as for the PSU, the fan is going, pushing out semi-warm air (made me think of the heating thing...) as for the rails...do you mean, have they changed since I first installed the PSU? Or is the PSU kind of crap? I cant really test if it has changed...I think its not a bad unit, I havent had any issues with it before...I'm hoping its temp, I dont want to not have 512mb RAM again! Its wonderful!! I'll bet the bloody thing works fine in someone elses machine :/

Its new since saturday, but it was going fine until sunday evening...so thats why I assumed it probably wasnt causing the freezie.

Maybe I will run live-update and rescan, just in the vague hope...

Cheers SP

[Humantuckshop]

Is your HDD noisy? My IBM POS has been getting a little rowdy lately, clicking and squeeling on startup, reboots and shutdowns. Just after it started doing this I began experiencing random lockups just like you. Easily replaced. ;)

So try scandisk, disk defrag, etc....... And check for viruses as SP suggested.

Have you been arsing around with system settings or installing new drivers, software, etc?

[Antallica]

Tried resetting ur bios via the handy jumper? Also seeing as you've uninstalled ur proggys mabye you should try a format and see what that produces.

Ran windowsupdate recently? Mabye another driver/windows prob? Or mabye a rouge proggy that's running in the bg?

[Humantuckshop]

Originally posted by SecretSquirrel
And as for the PSU, the fan is going, pushing out semi-warm air (made me think of the heating thing...) as for the rails...do you mean, have they changed since I first installed the PSU? Or is the PSU kind of crap? I cant really test if it has changed...I think its not a bad unit, I havent had any issues with it before.




Semi-warm air excretion is normal. ;)

Are the rails fluctuating at all? ie: if you watch them in BIOS or through a system monitoring utility does the 5V rail drop below 4.85V?

[Binky Stunt Cat]

Originally posted by Humantuckshop
Is your HDD noisy? My IBM POS has been getting a little rowdy lately, clicking and squeeling on startup, reboots and shutdowns. Just after it started doing this I began experiencing random lockups just like you.
geee, guess what just happened to me.....
Merily blowing radar dishes up in RtCW and i get an error "You cannot write to Drive D" and i thought "oh ****" coz drive d=30Gb of your favorite movies/tv eps and my download dir for DC.....

one restart later and i get a "The program referred to by IEnabler.ink cannot be found" (Uni firewall thingy, located on D drive).
Open up Explorer, look...C.....E...F...G.....wheres D???

so, i shut down, opened the case, saw the mess and thouhgt, time for a tidy up, as well as adding my V7+ switch thanks to a nicely drilled serial port expansion facer.

Booted up........Scanning Drive D.......

a few hours later.....

File and directory structure check finished.

and now i'm defragging 45Gb of HDD space coz i havent in a while......

*looks forward to his 80 Gb off goodness thanks to JB*

i think some formatting and repartitioning is in order here.....

PS: is it just me or is this the longest post i've made ever?

[SecretSquirrel]

haha Binky :)

OK. The rails are pretty stable. I havent tried resetting CMOS, thats a good idea. I have installed sod all programs/hardware lately, other than the RAM, I'm getting more and more convinced my CPU is shizerpanten itself, the temps are 5-10 degrees higher than normal for EVERYTHING...idle and otherwise :/

It used to sit on about 22 when cruising the internet for hot chicks etc, and playing mp3's etc...but now its closer to 30...games, benchmarks, dremples, anything else designed to stress the computer used to sit on 29-31 degrees...lately its been scraping the underside of a nut of 40 degrees :/

Since I unlocked this cheeseblock about 4 months ago, I noticed it tended to freeze/blue screen and reset at about 40 degrees now, instead of 60+...so I wonder if something in the monitoring department of the CPU/motherboard is pooted?

As for the harddrive, mine is a piece of shizer 'Cuda 2, that doesnt like more than 38mhz pci bus :/ But generally it didnt freeze the machine, it blue screen + reset it.

Cheers for the advice, I updated Nortons, and it found a single update...I will rescan, after a defrag, after a CMOS reset...all for the cause, eh what?

[edit] woot, 25 degrees! lowest yet!!

[Joshsti_NZ]

hehe, your lucky, my CPU when OC'ed runs at 45-50degC according to my BIOS HWM, ahh well, not long before i can upgrade now :)

[Antimatter]

Run Ad-aware.
Lately I've been noticing more problematic sh1t installing itself on computers. Gator, Go-hip and New.net all put in various dll/dialer/registry settings that can cause instability and lockups...get rid of it all.

[Bullchicken]

Ad-aware...good call.

Tested PC today, its not the RAM, and its not the CPU...

Its either Windows itself (reinstall ahoyhoy) or perhaps some sh!ts that I have installed...

If ad-aware doesnt catch up with the evil doings...I will re-re-re-re-reinstall windows and all its related bullsh!t, and be back in time for xmas.

[SecretSquirrel]

Ad-aware only found one giant juicy ad...

I took the CDROM out of the machine (well, unplugged it) to see if it was that, for some reason it sounded like it was spinning up when the machine locked up...we'll see how that goes, however...