51 replies to this topic

[MikeBoa]

also, I did just run a windows mem diagnostic on the ram & it tested fine. I've been having problems with this machine/system off & on so much for the last few years it's hard to pinpoint the cause. ya, took it to the geek squad & that's when the MB was replaced about a year ago. didn't have to pay abit but the geeks charged me about $300. ran ok for awhile then problems again, like now. it's been acting up both before & after I took out what I thought was the faulty ram module. just something really unstable with this sys - could be the OS, hardware(s), or both. it was even just crashing & going black. not even rebooting. iow, having reverted back to the original ram & config, still problems. though seems ok for right now. I really don't think it's any malware or virus thing - went though all that on here when I had the trojan fairly recently. ran malwarebytes just now & nothing detected. maybe best solution would be to salvage the good parts of this one & build a new computer. the Cooler Master case I have must have had a short in the front usb jack, which is physically damaged, because it wouldn't even power on until I disconnected the front panel from the MB.

Edited by MikeBoa, 22 June 2009 - 11:11 PM.

[jephree]

Well the front panel issue adds more suspects but do you mean you just removed the USB leads? Is the Front Panel i.e. Power switch/reset/HDD LED still connected? Is the case clean? Fans clean. All this could be a heat issue. You can always test the software side by trying a Clean Install of the OS. And no more Geek Squad please.

[jephree]

Have you run a Clean Install since the motherboard was replaced? If not you should.

[MikeBoa]

Well the front panel issue adds more suspects but do you mean you just removed the USB leads?

Is the Front Panel i.e. Power switch/reset/HDD LED still connected?

Is the case clean? Fans clean.

All this could be a heat issue.

You can always test the software side by trying a Clean Install of the OS.


And no more Geek Squad please.

oh ya all those are still connected, I just disconnected the front usb below those. the little plastic tab in one of the usb jacks broke off & must have caused some short, 'cause it wouldn't even power on with it connected about 1 mo. ago. maybe the MB is bad again now.

i've cleaned it out some inside. I checked the abit uguru in the bios & all the temps seem fine.

I was getting a freeze or reboot when I tried a regular reinstall. I can back-up & try another one. what do you do for your "clean" install?

[jephree]

Just do not choose "R" for Repair or Upgrade. Choose "Enter" to install a New version. Note: all data will be lost. You will also need to know your XP Product Key either way. Anyway this would resolve the software/hardware question. Anytime you replace a motherboard you should run a Clean Install of the OS. If the problems persists then we are looking at a hardware fault. . . .

Edited by jephree, 22 June 2009 - 11:33 PM.
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[MikeBoa]

yeah, it was that losing all data, especially programs that kept me from ever doing a clean install. anyway, I just tried my XP Pro reinstall, 1st with a repair, & it froze at about 20% of copying the files. rebooted & tried the clean XP install (just hit enter, no "R" this time) & right after I hit F8 to agree it just went dead screen black - not even a reboot. would that be 100% probability that it's hardware, & couldn't just be an extremely corrupted OS? my guess is it's hardware. maybe the case &/or power is screwing up the MB, as this is the 2nd abit MB. I think we can definitely rule out the HD, as this is the 4th one I've tried & brand new. also, ram is booting & testing fine. having problems no matter which I put in various slots.

[8210GUY]

Too late to get you checking in the event log now probably, if you tried a fresh install and failed it's probably not going to boot, so I suggest taking it back to basics, first off can you access the bios ?
As suggested heat may be an issue, so if you can check in system health as to what your temp's are that would help see if this could be the problem.

Next try stripping EVERYTHING that is not required for the system to run, so unplug optical drives, sound cards etc, unplug case fans, BUT, do NOT unplug the CPU fan, although if you have a free standing fan you use in the house for yourselves aim that into the case to compensate for the case fans being off if possible, then try a single stick of ram, if it starts to behave then it suggests something you unplugged is the cause, so shut down and add things back 1 at a time, if it spits the dummy thats the item causing the problem.

The next thing to try is try booting with no ram, then try with no video card (obviously put the other item back first), you should be getting error beeps, note what they are and then we can check that they are reporting the right thing, needless to say remove the mains lead before touching inside each time, but see if any of this highlights anything.

But ultimately it would help to low level format the drive, the Low Level Format Tool is a good option, but it runs from within windows so you'd need to add this drive as a slave to another system, BUT, it is merciless, so triple check you select the right drive to format because you get NO confirmation or warning, it just starts so be aware, and this tool WILL format your OS drive if you select the wrong one, and it makes no difference it's the drive your working from, it WILL wipe it without asking for ANY confirmation first, so use with extreme caution,
Another good tool is KillDisk, not as good but still an excellent tool and more than capable of this, then "IF" there is an infection a nice format will wipe that, it may take several hours depending on the size\speed of the system, so may be worth running overnight, once formatted shut down, remove the mains lead and remove the CMOS battery, then move the jumper to the clear position for a minute, this will remove any infections hiding in the memory and coming back after you reinstall.

Once done put the jumper back, put the battery back then plug it in again and fire it up, Note; this will wipe the bios settings, so on booting you need to go back into that and set the correct date\time and set drive priority's etc, then see if you can do a clean install, mind you in mentioning the battery, while your checking the system health for the tempo's, check that the time\date are correct as well, if it's not the battery needs replacing, you can get some funky stuff going down when they are failing, so check that first as it may save a lot of hassle, hopefully something here will help.

[MikeBoa]

thanks, guy. it actually was booting up after those 2 install attempts, but I went ahead & restored the system from acronis backup overnight, & it looks like I'm back to the state last Fri, 6/19/09. it seems to be doing fine now, but I suspect it'll start crashing &/or freezing again sooner than later. I could try another XP reinstall & see if it reboots after & check the event log. I do have the Windows recovery console turned on. don't know if that might be a problem on the reinstalls. here're the temps from uGuru: CPU: 102 System: 108 PWM: 127 all in Farenheight (fortunately) update: when I tried to do an incremental backup of the main to my external drive, it froze during the process. can the event log tell anything without going through all the above? jeez, you'd think a computer could analyze itself too.

Edited by MikeBoa, 23 June 2009 - 11:35 PM.

[8210GUY]

Well if it running fine now it's a case of just monitoring it, the temp's would appear to be OK, thats around 40 degrees so not to bad, over 50 you need to look at bettering it, over 60 more so, over 70 then it needs some real attention before damage starts to happen, if you want a tool to monitor your temp's use Speedfan, that will help you see if they get to hot as you put load on the system. There is no point doing anything else at this stage now you've reverted to the back up, BUT, what I suggest is take notice of what happens, eg windows updates or installs, if you start to see a problem right after then it may well be the cause, and knowing that may help figure it out, then checking the log at the time something happens we can then get an early start on this and one hopes it will be easier to sort, so see how you go and unless something goes wrong your sorted, but feel free to holla if you feel something is not right and we can try and help, good luck.

[MikeBoa]

actually no, it's not ok again. before, if I tried to do an acronis backup to the 2nd hard drive, the process would freeze. now, it's freezing when I try to backup to the external HD, which always worked fine before. I can tell you that the freezing & crashing really started up again when I installed the IE8 update from IE7 about 1 month ago. I've since removed IE8 & back to IE7. should probably switch to Firefox, though this really seems to be some hardware issue primarily - this system has seemed buggy from the start. wonder if it could even be the Leadtek video card. anyway, I'll try another backup then check the event log for around that time. imagine I look under "system" there? anything to look for specifically? thank you.

[8210GUY]

There are some who do have major issues after installing ie8, most never have a problem, but those that do get it big time usually, alternately as you have speculated, some builds just seem to have that "you will get trouble" type thing from the start, not necessarily down to "bad" hardware, often in it's own right that is fine, but I do believe that sometimes there is just the wrong mix of parts that decide they wont play nice together, if you have another card it certainly can't hurt to try it. As to the log, I tend to look in every section of it, you never know if it may be more than 1 issue, but while your at it, have you run scans on the hard drive(s) ? Can't recall without going back through the thread, but it may be worth it if only for peace of mind, go to the makers of the hard drive(s) in the support pages and download and run the utility they offer to check the drives health, see if that shows anything.

[MikeBoa]

I've now switched to Firefox. I'll keep IE7 just for Windows updates. Firefox is markedly faster, & doesn't get hung up at all so far like the IE7 did all the time. I'm reloading my Acronis TrueImage backup software & am going to try another C: backup. If it freezes again, I'll have to try some drastic measures to fix this thing. Gotta have the backups. I've run numerous scans on the drive - numerous full scans of all 5 levels too with fixes - /f & /r. Everytime I run the read only scan it says "Windows found problems with the file system". Guess that's obvious. Actually what got it functioning again was when it was freezing & crashing/rebooting I chose Windows Recovery Console on one round & that crashed & rebooted too. Then it did an auto check disk & fixed some reference files & now it's ok for now. I'm not all familiar with the event log lingo, but under system I'm seeing alot of warnings & errors. One w/ the Windows Media Player keeps popping up. I know this really needs a clean XP install. Just dread all the work getting it back to where it was. Use this for work mainly. Then real afraid that if it's hardware issue(s) it'll just screw up the OS again. I've run the Seagate disk utility. This is a brand new HD. 4th one - new disks don't seem to solve the problem(s).

Edited by MikeBoa, 24 June 2009 - 10:10 PM.

[8210GUY]

Have all the disks been the same one ? or at least brand ?
I'm sure I saw something about some of they're drives having firmware issues, just wondering if you may have one of these drives, personally I prefer WD, or the 1TB Samsung F1 is a great drive as well, obviously I don't suggest you go get it, just saying thats all, but to confirm the main scan I mean is that from the makers to check the physical disks health.
But I agree that until this issue is uncovered a fresh install will probably just result in more of the same down the road, but as a thought have you tried a repair install yet ?

[MikeBoa]

the builder back in '06 put in 2 WD 120GB Caviar Sata I drives, then w/ the problems about 1 year ago I got a new WD Caviar 500GB SATA II, & then w/ the recent problems (after install of IE8 about 1 mo ago) I got this Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA II. seemed like a good deal for about $90. don't think I needed it though in retrospect, nor the 500gb for that matter. yes, I just ran the various tests from Seagate utility software & all test ok. the Seagate is the C: drive & I have the WD 500gb as the D: the system is now crashing & rebooting when I try an acronis backup to either the external HD or the internal D: drive. it does this fairly shortly into the backup process - after about 10-20 min of about a 2 hr full backup. strange thing is that I can directly copy/paste all the individual files & folders I want to either drive. also, when I try an XP reinstall-repair, it freezes. when I try a clean-install it crashes. with any of these processes & problems, the system will crash or freeze when trying to restart Windows, until after a few or several attempts all goes back to normal. so it seems certain processes invoke the problems. possibly those invoking the GUI? I found a small computer shop down the street that does a diagnostic for just $50. I'll probably take it into them for that price. unless the above helps to find some quicker & easier solution for you. thanks much!

Edited by MikeBoa, 25 June 2009 - 10:58 AM.

[paws]

Hi MikeBoa,
A useful and quick test to see if its likely to be a hardware or software issue is to run a Live distro of Linux from CD.....this will run entirely in RAM and not write to your hard drive at all... It does not involve starting up Windows at all,so any problems there are by-passed.
Naturally it will be a bit slower than accessing Windows from your hard drive....

here's two sites from which you can download either Linux Puppy or Ubuntu
http://www.puppylinux.com/about.htm
http://www.howtogeek...ndows-computer/
Don't worry about the title of the second link..just check it out!

If you decide to download Puppy then you will need a working computer to download the iso and then burn it to CD. (You must burn it as an image not just copy the data....see second link)
You will then be able to boot from the CD (altering the bios to allow this if necessary)

The Linux Puppy operating system then will run from memory and enable you to throughly check out your machine......if it works Ok on Puppy without crashing after an extended trial then you will know where the culprit is!
If it crashes as before then its likely a hardware problem.

Neither of the two Linux distributions (Puppy or Ubuntu) need a knowledge of Linux to use them...they are pretty intuitive and will allow you to surf the Web, access your emails etc..and best of all when you close down the machine and remove the CD all the Linux (that is running in memory) disappears !
Hope this helps
Regards
paws