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Strange lock-ups and mystery re-booting???

S

Sircoop

Member
😕

I am lost...I think I am pretty knowledgable when it comes to PCs. Here is my situation:

Win XP Home Service pack 1
Soyo Dragon Plus
AMD 2.0Gig XP CPU
Twin 120Gig WD Special edition IDE HDs *MB Cahce
Ti4400 128MB Video Card
512K PC2100 DDR Ram
Creative Audiology X-Gamer
Cable modem

I installed this system about 5 months ago and NEVER had a stability problem.. Recently I have expierencing strange freezes after boot up. I would be just typing in any application or just moving the mouse on the desktop and BANG! system freezes and I have to do a soft reboot. The other situation is the system will boot up and and I will be using it for about 4-5 minute and BANG it reboots itself?????

I tired Defragging, runnning checks Norton??? Nothing seems wrong. I think all of this started happening after I downloaded and install Win XP Home Service Pack 1.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Sircoop
 
😕

Now If I tell you that I Uninstall WIN XP Service Pack 1 and the problem goes away, what would you thoughts be?

I did install Win XP Service Pack 1 about 3 months ago and I started to lockup during bootup and normal system usage. I then uninstalled Win XP Service Pack 1 and the problem did go away (Freeze Lock up) I also did tests on my Power supply and everything is A OK

Then after about 2 months Windows came out with another version of the service pack and I installed it, thinking maybe the 1st one I downloaded got corrupted. I installed it and everything was fine for about 3 weeks then BANG mystery reboot and strange freezes.

What other software can confirm a power supply is going?

Also based on my system how much juice do you think I need? 450 500?

Sircoop
 
lol um you definitely need NO WHERE close to 450w PSU


you can run an athlon 2100+, 2 hard drives, cdrom, floppy, blah blah blah, ti 4600 on a 330w PSU

i should know, i have done it


it depends on the quality, not so much the quantity
 
I agree. I think my PSU is fine. I find it funny that I installl Service pack 1 for XP home and I sart to lock up on the inital bootup after the install. I try and try then finally am able to use the PC and then BANG freeze again!

I then uninstall the Service pack and everything is fine.

I wait a few months until a new version comes out and I install it. Everything looks good and then 4 weeks later BANG my system reboots...Then it works fine then BANG system freezes. etc....

Does anyone else have any ideas what I can check Motherboard or CPU...

I also get the normal beeps during my boot. I can play high end 3d games and everything works fine PC stays on for 10+hours and then one day it will just reboot right away after posting 2-3minutes or just freeze...Very strange

Any ideas?

Sircoop
 
Because the problem came and went with sevice Pack 1, I would not look too hard at the hardware.
That said, have you run memtest86? It is easy to do, and random reboots and lockups are common memory error symptoms.
D/L the precompiled version, and make a memtest86 boot floppy. Let it run overnight, and check it out in the morning. You should have no more than 1 or 2 errors, max. If you have more than that, and you have more than 1 stick of ram, pull one out and run it again.
 
Originally posted by: Sircoop
Thank you. I will run it tonight and report back tomorrow AM

Sircoop
Click to expand...

yeah that is a good idea...definitely run that memory tester


i didnt think of that but i have built a few computers that did that exact same thing and it was always because of incompatible RAM
 
OK I ran the memory tester you guys suggested at 12am until 8am this morning and it only got through test 4 and reported 0 errors accross the board. Looks like my memory is good. If I uninstall Service Pack 1 and everything is ok, what could possibly be causing this to happen in the pack?

Sircoop
 
I had issues with service pack one and the video driver it "updated" to. Check the build dates and versions of some of the key device drivers, before and after sp1. It essentially got rid of a good version of driver for my AIW radeon, and the updated driver would immediately wedge in certain games.
 
Your problem seems to be a software one, but just in case, you could try looking into these:

- Does your CPU fan go on & off intermitently? Cooling problems can cause system reboots.
- Disable windows mechanism for automatic reboot when it encounters system errors, that way you can read the message the OS gives (Blue screen), it might give you some insights.
- Yes you do need to get the latest drivers for your TI4200.
 
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