Computer Freezes Once Daily

[K_Fox]

Hello All!

I am having the weirdest problem EVER. The first time i boot my computer every day it freezes. No cntl/alt/dlt, no nothing. just insta freeze. Computer is still running i just cant access it. I am no wiz but I did build this computer a while ago and think it might be windows related but not sure.
I have a gigabyte 7vkmp mobo, 1G ddr mem, athlon 1.2 G cpu, fx5200 vid card and a modem card. I have upgraded all drivers for vid card, even changed vid card. I have changed mobo, hard drive, cpu, upgraded/downgraded ram. Still having vid freezes. I have repaired/reinstalled WIN 2000 ( have full retail copy ). I have changed out power supplies twice.
I guess i am at my wits end. I am thinking of throwing my computer in my fish tank.

First i might try to wipe drive my second hard drive and do a complete fresh install to include upgraded drivers for Mobo and FX 5200.
When i changed out my cpu to a new 1.2 G thunderbird from my old 1.4 Athlon it seemed to go away for a while but no go. I do have freezes during games every once in a while also, but usually after the first freeze of the day, i re-boot, everything runs fine.

any help would be God like at this point. I REALLY hate re-installing everything yet again if its not gonna help.

Thanks In Advance
Kerry

[Kraai]

What I learned here on Daniweb and it helped my freeze problem, you may find here:

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post687499.html#post687499

[gerbil]

A problem with the page file will lock your sys down solid, if it is trying to access it. Think hdd problems.

[K_Fox]

Hello All!

I wiped my drive, took out my modem card so the only other thing in my system would be the FX 5200 card.
2 things of note happened. The first boot when i was setting up the wipe drive, my system froze. Just rebooted and didnt think much about it. Just now when i installed the win 2000 pro disk to format the drive, it froze.
Now im not a genius but wouldnt this indicate the problem is hardware related possibly cpu?

On a side note, when doing fresh install of win 2000 pro on a 300G hard drive, the system only recognizes 137G. I just selected the unpartitioned 137 G and told it to install winblows. Is that right? Should i have created several partitions or just install on the whole block?

Well, thanks again in advance.
Kerry

[gerbil]

Well, yes it does. And it would pay to eliminate the hdd as a source.
Because your machine is actually still bootable then do this [this procedure will burn a diagnostic program onto a cd which in turn may be used to boot your machine and check the hd] :
You'll need access to a computer with Internet connectivity and a CD burner, plus a blank CD-R or CD-RW.
Then go to this link: http://www.woyaa.com/cgi-bin/download/jump.cgi?ID=708646
or this link: http://support.thetechguys.com/Uploads/%7Bb4d5f239-78d9-4bd8-8e7a-2de1983b4d7d%7D/DiagCD23.exe
Either Run the file download or Save diagcd23.exe to your computer and dclick it to run. The procedure is quite automatic: you will be asked to insert a blank CD for burning the file.
Once the disk is created, put it in your broken machine, then restart it. It should boot from the CD and then give you the opportunity to run a Long HDD (hard disk) test. The utility supports a wide range of disk manufacturers.
Say how you get on.

[itdupuis]

Have you thought about trying a new OS?? Just curious to know if it is your OS...seems to be the only unchanged variable.

[K_Fox]

Thanks For all the input!

I have eliminated the hard drive. This last wipe drive and fresh install was done on seperate hard drive that i don't really use. As a matter of fact i got the hard drive recently because of the problems i was having.
Well, i would conclude that it must be cpu or Operating System.
The computer ran perfect originally, and i have used Windows 2000 pro the whole time. ( I mean i paid for full retail copy i think I should be able to use it till I DIE!)
With the service packs however, there could be conflicting stuff. I Had everything ready for this fresh install including service pack 4.
Since the freezes have happened even when the OS was completely wiped i am inclined to believe it must be CPU.
I did change out the CPU a while ago and the problem seemed to go away for a while.
I think I read somewhere that Socket A motherboards had problems with the heat sinks requiring too much force to install and could cause damage to the DIE.
I havent really given it much though because I am usually pretty careful. But what the heck, if the motherboard cant take too much pressure maybe regardless how nice i am it still can damage the die.

Well, I guess thats about it. I think i have determined its the CPU. I ordered yet another one, and will let yall know if it solves the problem.

In the grand scheme of things, having your computer lock up first boot everyday is not TOO BAD of a problem. But some weird things have happened. I somehow fragged a 19" lcd monitor about 4 months after i bought it, i think that was related to the radeon 1650 pro card that also went bad after about 8 months after I bought it. I burnt a power supply but i think it was bad to begin with cause it was a house brand and was very noisy to begin.

Anyway, I will swap cpu and see if it helps. if not, i will buy another system and kill this thing.

Kerry

Since i have pretty much changed everything in this system

[gerbil]

Good luck with that. Have you ever separated the heatsink/CPU? Could be that there is a temporary heating issue when the chip is first fired up.

[K_Fox]

Hello Again.

Well, I have not received my new cpu yet. I Did however boot the computer to CMOS and left it there to see if it would freeze on the cmos screen. Never happened. I left it in cmos for about 3 hours and not 1 hang up. Then i rebooted my computer and still didnt have a freeze for the rest of the day.
This morning I booted up and it seemed to be working fine but alas, it froze after about 20 minutes.
well, i guess ill see if the new cpu works. If not I will get another motherboard.

The new hard drive is not throwing the same fault as the old hard drive. It is rebooting instead of freezing. Does anyone know if this might be related or an indication of the problem i might be having?

Thanks
Kerry

[John717]

you might want to look up the default pin configuration of the motherboard and make sure none of the pins have been altered in their arrangement.

if you need a backup id go with easeus freeware partition copy ability and make a boot up disk or a save partition to disk or even a usb drive.

make sure all the pins on hard drive are set to master if you are sharing two hard drives make sure the second one that is below the first is set to slave in its pin config.

could be a bios flash problem of your CMOS so you could try to find a BIOS flash update file and burn it for that CMOS and flash your CMOS but make sure you know what your doing or you can ruin your computer.

you might want to use killdisk and do a pure fresh install since some forms of partitioning might leave residual files.

if you are installing from a custom cd or a BartPE virtual disk then it could be a problem in those customized installs.make sure to find out if it a sata drive and install all the sata drivers as well.

[K_Fox]

Thanks for the input.
Already did a bios flash. Gigabyte has flash utility that makes it easy for ya, then all ya have to do is set cmos to optimized values to use the new bios.
I will try to check the pins and jumpers again on the motherboard.
Something weird though. The freezes have been absent for 2 days now.

8 (

Im not sure if this bios flash didnt actualy work.
Will keep ya posted.
Kerry

[magic_mikey]

I know it is only simple but have you checked the hdd cables. If you have a faulty cable on either hdd it might cause conflicts and system freeze?

Sounds similar to a hdd failiure I came across a while ago. To get a stable system I partitioned the disk into 3, a small one for the MBR followed by a blank unformatted partition where the fault was on the hdd then a 3rd partition where the o/s was installed. A new HDD would have solved the problem but the owner didn't want to spend the money after a local service agent claimed it could not be repaired.

[K_Fox]

Well, I got a new cpu. Never used it.
I am not sure if the flash worked or like magik mikey said about the cables. All i do know is that its been about a week and no freezes or restarts.

Could have been the bios flash, at first i didnt realize you need to go back into the bios and load OPTIMIZED values for the new flash to actually be utilized. Seems after i did that was when the problems went away.
However, I also straightened out the hard drive ribbon cables when i hooked the new drive up as a slave.

Regardless, the problem seems to be gone for now.

Thanks for all the input. I will post if problems come back.

In the end, I never used new cpu or even the new hard drive. The fresh install on new hard drive and making sure all drivers/updates installed in proper was nice to do/learn though.
The freezes went away when i flashed bios or because of unplug/reseating everything.
Just in case anyone else is looking for this problem/answer.

Thanks
Kerry

[K_Fox]

Well, back to square-1. Its been over a week, booted up today just like normal. Opened i-explorer to log on Lowes.com and check to see how much insulation costs and drywal...
Anyway, my computer re-booted itself right in the middle of selecting what departed to look in.

Couple things of note...computer was definitely not hot. (Just booted). Was not running any other program except I-EXPLORER. This was the first boot today which is similar to the original problem I had. Only difference is that this time it rebooted instead of just freezing.

Any help would be appreciated. Still not sure what Im looking for. Maybe ill just put in the new CPU I ordered and see if that helps.

Thanks,
Kerry

[magic_mikey]

Hi Kerry.

Can you disable automatic restart. Control panel/System/Advanced Tab, under Start up and Recovery click settings, there is a section called System Failure make sure there is no tick in the box next to "Automatically Restart" then click ok. If the computer shuts down again it should provide you with a blue screen of death which will contain an error code.
Can you also check the Event Log for anything with a yellow or red icon (Control panel/Administrative Tools/System tools/Event Viewer). With any luck you should be able to find an error code for the last restart. If you find any error codes post them back here.

I am still curious regarding the HDD cable. Are you using IDE or SATA drives. If they are IDE can you swap the cable with the IDE cable on your CD drive.

Good luck