Re: WinXP freezing, hanging up.........



"Paul" wrote:

Steve wrote:

"Paul" wrote:

Steve wrote:
on startup. my sister sent me her Gateway computer, it worked find for a
couple of days then earlier this week while I was on the net it just froze up
on me, I couldn't use the mouse or anything else. so I rebooted and it froze
and continues to freeze up after. every now and then I can get as far as the
user account icon.

I'm running WinXP as it says in the Topic title. I have tried to boot from
the WinXP installation cd and that hangs up too and it gets to the Windows
Setup screen when it is loading files. I have also tried another hard drive
with the same results. it also will not boot in the safe mode either.

does anyone have any ideas. if you need more info please let me know
There are programs you can get, to test stuff. For example, memtest86+
from memtest.org , is available in a floppy or a CD version. When you
run the program, no errors are acceptable (as an error could be what
is upsetting the machine). Even the ability to boot and run this, is
a positive sign. Memtest86+ doesn't find all possible RAM problems
(as some only become apparent under 100% CPU loading).

http://www.memtest.org/pics/i875-big.gif

For hard drive testing, the hard drive manufacturers have diagnostic
programs for download on their web site. This can determine whether
there is a serious problem with the disk for example. You'd need
to eyeball the label on the drive, if you cannot run the computer
and collect inventory information while in Windows.

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOSguide.pdf

Another place to look, is in the BIOS screens. On my machine, when
it starts, I press <delete> to get into the BIOS setup screen.
There is a hardware monitor page, where fan speeds and power
supply voltages are measured. Maybe the Gateway has something
like that. The 3.3V, 5V, and 12V voltages should be within
+/- 5% of those values.

Perhaps when you've collected a few more symptoms, the cause
will be more apparent. Freezing, as such, may have more than
one root cause. (For example, there was a certain network driver
a while back, offered through Windows Update, that caused a
freezing problem. Yours sounds more like a hardware problem
of some sort.)

Paul

thank Paul, if I want to create a CD to run Memtest68 what do I need
to download? sorry I'm not sure what to do after reading it

http://www.memtest.org/

thank you


The CD option takes the form of an ISO9660 file. I take that into
Nero and burn a CD with the ISO9660. The ISO9660 is a container,
that allows bootable media. What you don't want to do, is just
transfer "blah.iso" to the CD, such that if you look at the
CD in Explorer, it shows one file blah.iso. That won't work.
The CD burning program treats the ISO9660 as an image, to be
transferred to the CD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso9660
http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm

If you don't have any burning software, then I've heard of this
package. Never used it myself. (When I bought a burner, I made
sure at the time, that some version of Nero was bundled with it.
The latest versions of Nero, are getting rather bloated with
unrelated crap.)

"DeepBurner-Free"
http://www.download.com/DeepBurner-Free/3000-2646_4-10250994.html

Paul

thanks Paul, I used Nero, ran and it, but it only ran for about 18 seconds.
thinking to myself that is not a good sign.

plus after reading this, not sure what my next step should be.........

If your computer freezes even when in BIOS.......
Well, that sounds BAD.
Something very basic and important must be broke.

Your problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with your OS, so no
repairdisk will help. Bios is low-level.

You CAN try to replace some components with others if that is an option.
Memory would be a good start.

If you want to spend some money on it, you can bring it to your local PC
repairman.
In my experience, all the money you spend on it is money gone. You could
spend that too on a new machine, and with repaircost easily $50 an hour
without garantueed result...

Sorry. I would give up on a machine freezing in BIOS.
(Or at most try replacing memorymodules only from another PC with
comparable memory)

Regards,
Erwin Moller

do you have any ideas?
.

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