Computer freezing constantly

[sintax]

Alright so my computer started freezing on me from time to time a couple of months ago and now it freezes everytime I turn it on after being on for about 20 minutes. At first I thought it was the video card but i tried a different one and still froze. Then i tried different ram and still froze. Then a different psu and still froze. Im using the same video card, ram and psu on another computer and its running fine. So im thinking its either the motherboard or the cpu. I dont think its a heat problem cause I have a thermaltake Venus 12 cpu fan and 4 case fans. When it freezes I sometimes get a blue screen and other times I just get a bunch of line on the screen or the screen looks normal but you cant move anything. Anyone know what the problem could be?

 

[HomeyFoos]

I would say to run some tests with your DTK Mouse Pad. Try it on a couple of different machines and see if they lock up.

 

[Slikkster]

What blue screens are you getting? Be specific.

Have you tried reseating everything in their respective slots? Memory, video, etc. Reseat all cables, too.

How about your "Event Log"? Any red stop errors there or yellow warning errors? Start/Programs/Administrative Tools/Event Viewer. Look at both System and Application logs.

I know you want to rule out heat, but have you tried without the side cover on? Are the case fans oriented correctly? In other words, you don't want to create a vacuum in the pc. You want the front case fans to pull air in, and the back case fan(s) to blow air out.

Have you blown out the motherboard dust lately? Take a look at your CPU heatsink beneath the fan. Could be lots of dust wedged in the fins.

Do you have heatsinks and/or fans on the north/soutbridge chipsets?

 

[sintax]

i checked the event log and for applications and i get winmgmt yellow warning errors and in system i get a few windows update agent red errors and a bunch of w32time red errors. For the dust thing I removed cpu heatsink and removed all the dust and also from the motherboard

 

[sintax]

I also have another computer that just likes to restart whenever it wants to. Any ideas why it does this?

 

[Slikkster]

I did a little quick reading, and there are some posts that say for AMD 64 cpu's, you need at least 24 Amps on the 12 volt "rail" of the power supply. You need to see what your Antec is rated for. Total power out doesn't mean much. You need to know specifically what power is available on the 12 V side of the power supply. What model Antec Power Supply is it?

 

[sintax]

its an antec 400w smartpower

 

[Slikkster]

Are you overclocking either the motherboard or the video card?

 

[sintax]

no im not overclocking anything

 

[sintax]

any help?

 

[sintax]

I still need help

 

[Slikkster]

If you have a magnifying glass, this next step will be easier. You need to take a look at all of the capacitors on your motherboard for signs of failure. To see what a failing capacitor looks like, take a look at http://www.badcaps.net. If they are bulging at the top or middle, or show any signs of leakage at the top or bottom, you've got a bad capacitor that can most certainly cause intermittent freezes.

Take a look at the "Identifying Bad Caps" link on the left, but certainly read about the problem on the main page.

 

[sintax]

alright ill check it out

 

[sintax]

Heres the blue screen I get.

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prebent damage to your computer.

MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION

If this is the first time youve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or reomove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 o select advanced startup options, and then select safe mode.

Technical Information:

*** STOP: 0X0000009C (0X00000004,0X80545FF0,0XB2000000,0X00070F0F)

Beginning dump of physical memory

 

[sintax]

ttt

 

[Slikkster]

Ok, the Machine Check blue screen is good info. That's what I was looking for.

Do you have more than one hard drive? Hard drives seem to be the main culprit here, or the actual ATA/SATA controller(s) drivers.

Please list all of your hard drives and optical (CD/DVD) drives here. In the meantime, if you have more than one hard drive and don't actually NEED the second drive to run XP from, try disconnecting it temporarily and run the pc to see if it is stabile.

Please list your drivers for your ATA/IDE and/or SATA controllers. I want to know if they are the standard XP drivers, or VIA drivers.

Follow the instructions above and report back.