Daily Freezings & random reboots?!

[Rustang351c]

Hi,
My system is a custom mall built, 3-4 years old and will just freeze (cursor and all) about once a day. Sometimes several times in a row. (very frustrating) It's usually when I have 2 instances of my MMO (shadowbane) open, but not always. It will occasionlly reboot for no reason also.

Asus P4PE-x
P4 2.6Gig 845PE
2x512mb Tyan (infineon modules)
Gigabyte 6600GT
Soundblaster Live!
WD WD800BB
Aopen modem
XP home, SP2
Aopen DUW1608 DVD/CD writer
Lite-on LTR 52327s CD writer
Thermaltake TR2 430w

The system psu is new because many peeps told me that was the problem. Didn't help at all. The system didn't do it when new. Seems like it started 1 1-1/2 years ago and has been doing it more often. I've added second stick ram, DVD writer in that time. I just did a fresh re-format and install of XP last week... I've never custom set anything in the Bios.

Thansk for any idea's. Russ

 

[aceman817]

I'd start by just plugging in the essential components: one stick of RAM, one optical drive, hard drive, and no PCI cards. Then see if the problem persists. It is likely that one of the sticks of RAM could be bad. If the problem doesn't persist, replace one component back into the system at a time and check if the problem occurs. If the problem still persists, run a hard drive scan and a memory scan. You can do this from the Ultimate Boot CD (www.ultimatebootcd.com). The DFT test can test any hard drive and MemTest86+ is a good memory tester. It could also be a mainboard issue or just a software issue. You can try booting into a Windows pre-installation environment like Bart's PE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) and see if the system still freezes. If it does, then it is a hardware issue. Else, it is probably just software. Good luck!

 

[jough]

I was having a problem like this until I made sure that the RAM voltage is set correctly for the memory in the BIOS. The paper/booklet that came with your memory (you did save that, didn't you?) should tell you what the correct setting is.

Upping the DDR voltage in the BIOS made my freezing and rebooting problems disappear.

It's something to check.