Hi,
I have been facing a peculiar problem for the last 3-4 months .
I am running XP Professional and the following are my specifications
433 MhZ Celeron ,
160 Mb SD Ram ,
Intel 810 motherboard ,
40 Gb Hard disk Primary (Samsung)
4 Gb Hard disk secondary (Quantum)
I added a 128 Mb Ram about 1 year back and upgraded to the 40 Gb hard disk too . I Installed XP pro and have been using it with NO ROBLEMS at all .
Since the past few months , my computer has been RANDOMLY freezing up . The freeze is so severe that the mouse gets stuck at one place , there is no activity , the system does not respond to any key strokes , Even CTRL+ALT+DEL doesnt work . It just goes totally dead.
I havent upgraded since then , havent installed any new hardware . NOTHING , my specifications are the same .
Initially i thought it was a software error or some virus activity and so I formatted my entire disk and reloaded XP , but the freezes continued.
I read somewhere that its a hard disk problem and so i went to the SAMSUNG service center and got my hard disk replaced as it was under warranty. Again i formatted and reinstalled everything but the FREEZING WILL JUST NOT STOP .
I searched around GOOGLE for a possible solution and came across one or two forums which said the CPU could be overheating so i changed my CPU FAN but guess what ?? ya still FREEZING...........
By now i was determined to get to the root of the problem and so i searched some more and got to know from somewhere that it was definitely a MEMORY problem. I ran memtest86 the whole night . no errors . I changed the slot my Ram was in . Still Freezing . I tried running XP only with the 64 Mb RAM i had which was a foolish thing to do cause XP doesnt run on 64Mb . Anyway i put back my 128 MB and put the 64 Mb too thinking that 128 Mb was falling short for Xp . (PLEASE NOTE : I was running XP with 128 Mb ram for almost 6-8 months without any problems before the freezing) . Hence , now i have 160 MB RAM which is more than 128 MB but its still freezing .
Next , i decided to format my hard disk again ,, this time cause the BLASTER worm had come . I reinstalled everything for the third time now . but nothing happened ... The computer still freezes randomly .
For about 2 weeks now ive been working on an unstable system which freezes anytime it wants too .Opening applications , minimizing , maximizing , etc it happens ANYTIME it WANTS TOO . One thing i'd like to bring up here is that , whenever i try playing VIDEOS , be it MPEG , avi , or DIvx . the system HANGS FOR SURE . This I have noticed again an again . I play a video file on Windows Media Player or PowerDVD or DivX player and the system HAS TO FREEzE UP DEFINITELY . It starts playing the file but freezes mid way. This is not the case with REAL VIDEO files . I have tried using REAL player to play Avis and MEpgs but still it freezes.
Last night , i searched again and someone wrote that he had the same problem and he checked his error logs and the problem was his LAN card .. I thought this could be RIGHT .. I opened up the CABINET once again . unhooked my LAN card , rebooted ........ :( :( :( , Its STILL hanging .
Today in the morning i took up the Job of elimintating the RAM as a possible cause since a lot of people lay their life on bet saying that its a RAM problem . This is what i did .
1. I took an old 2 Gb hard disk i had lying around and made it primary .
2. I installed WINME on it (since ppl told me XP wont run on 128 Mb RAm which is not true cause i did run it for a long time)
3. I made my 40 Gb drive a slave and booted ME.
4. I tried playing a Video file which is a SURE SHOT HANG and LO
5. My system FROZE up AGAIN .
6. I copied the Video file onto the 2GB , Disconnected my 40 GB slave and booted with just the 2GB Primary
7. I played the Video file and IT HUNG AGAIn.
8. I removed the 128 MB RAm which everyone has been telling me is the fault and rebooted with just my 64Mb
9. I tried playing another VIDEO file.
10 . IT STILL FREEZES .
Thus , i am sure about the following things now .
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1. It is NOT a HARD DISK problem , i have booted with diff hard disks , I have even Changed my IDE cables .
2. It is not RAM , it hangs both on my 128MB and even 64MB (WINME) .
3. Not the LAN CARD
4. It is NOT a software or a driver or an OS problem . I can bet my life on it . Neither is it a Virus Activity cause i have formatted and reformatted and again formatted a lot of times and reinstalled everything.
This is what i'm unsure of
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1. Im unsure about CPU overheating (BUT I DID CHANGE THE FAN)
2. Unsure of it being a power supply fault . I will not touch this till i know if a freeze is one of the symptoms of a faulty power supply . If anyone can explain the reason behind the power supply being a possible cause , ill try changing it if im convinced.
3. Unsure of it being a BIOS problem . I did read that people upgraded their BIOS and the freezes have gone away but again I wont touch it till I know the actual reason behind it and moreover I have no idea how to Upgrade the BIOS.
I have never had such a major problem with my system ever and not been able to diagnose the cause .
After trying out everything which made sense to me , i ask anyone who can give me a possible solution with a strong reason to reply .
Thanks a lot
