Random Lockups...

[NateDiesel]

Dell Inspiron 4100 866mhz 1gb ram winXP Home.
It locks up randomly at the XP logo startup screen or while using XP... it never locks up when POSTing or in safe mode. It was running smoothly then I tried updating the audio drivers through the Dell site and it locked up. Now it locks up sometimes. I disabled the audio and it's currently running fine... but of course I want audio! Before, when it was locking up and I was trouble shooting... I shook the laptop and it started working again 3 or 4 times before locking up completely haha.

By locking up I just mean everything freezes and the mouse and keyboard don't respond.

Ideas? Thanks.

I assume it's just the age of the system / hardware but it was running real smoothly after a format and reinstall until I started messing with the drivers...

 

[Tarrant64]

well I guess the obvious place to start is the drivers. What you can attempt to do is a "repair" install if you are having trouble getting past the boot screen. This will adjust some drivers back to their defaults(or at least should). Any 3rd party drivers shouldn't be affected at all. Also, double check the drivers and make sure you have the right version, and if it is try looking for an older previous one. (Believe it or not I've had software that worked better on older drivers than newer ones).

I believe there is a driver cleaner utility, but registry cleaner is the only thing that pops to mind, and I don't think that's it. Maybe someone knows what it is. *looks around*...

BTW, the repair install won't damage anything so don't worry about that. You are looking to do the repair install when the windows setup screen says it detects a previous version of windows, it's on that screen you press "R" and it will re-install all your windows drivers. When your system starts back up again, no worries, everything will be just as it was except for some driver changes.

Hope this hells.

 

[NateDiesel]

If I completely disable the sound card / drivers then there are no lockups. I try a fresh format/reinstall and it works for a while but then back to the old problem. What Dell Support walked me through that was, they said, sure to work didn't...

so now I don't have sound but the computer works well enough for an old one. Maybe if I got a pcmia sound card I could have sound on this thing too...

Thoughts?