Can you kick it - I bleedin want to

[BelgyFaeEK]

OK time I tried to figure out what is going on with my pc. OK lets face facts it was built a few years ago, perhaps 4 or 5.

Specs - Motherboard is ASUS A7V8X Graphics Card - Radeon 9200 series 256mb 1 gig ram cpu AMD Athlon XP 2400+ 1.99ghz - running win xp pro

Basically the problem seems to be intermittent, can be on comp for maybe 1 hour then comp freezes, no errors whatsoever, no blue screen of death, other days i can be online all day and its ok, other times it can happen after 30 mins, I do not have alot of programs running generally, plenty of space on HD 25 gig free space.

When it freezes its like a photo of the comp only nothing works, fan is still going on in background, no funny beeps or anything, i have to hold power button in for 10 secs to switch off and reboot it is slow to reboot but if i let it reboot then do a proper restart from windows its all ok again until next time

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[The Dentist]

i had the same setup mate except with a 7200. what i found with that motherboard and the processor was everytime there was a build up of dust inside it woulddo that. so every 6 months a give it a hoover in the caee and the processor lol does the trick. usually just overheating or something. give it some thermal compound should be alright.
also check that the cabling inside isnt too cluttered.

when has this been happening since?

 

[BelgyFaeEK]

just in the last 4 or 5 weeks mate will take the thing and hoover it the morra i think.

Erm what is thermal compound and where ya get it?


Strange been thinking and it never done this until i got my wireless connection sorted, coincidence i hope

 

[The Dentist]

since the wireless? hmm could be driver conflicts.

i never ued thermal compound lol but aparently thats stuffs good for cooling. any computer shop mate.

 

[BelgyFaeEK]

I had considered driver conflicts but nothing showing up under the system menu

Will try the hoover and see if that resolves it

 

[Napster]

have you tried taken out wireless card un installing drivers and see if it runs ok without it

 

[crashuk2k1]

Check all the capacitors on your motherboard to see if any are leaky or busted capacitors.

As HERE

any that are leaking or swollon mean your motherboard is on way out .They can be replaced but it means strip down your PC & break out the soldering iron.

 

[Kris]

I had the same problem years ago on Windows 98. It was due to an update that had been applied to my virus scanner.

Not saying this is the cause for you but it's worth checking any software you might have installed or updated around then. Does the crash only happen when a particular program is open? Minimize what starts on boot from the msconfig menu and see how it goes from there.

 

[Anthony_lst]

I seem to recall reading something on the asus site about that board freezing, i got a computer with one in and i was updating the drivers. but i think it was an old bios and it caused freezing, might be worth getting an update or at the least having a peek in the site, they still have updates for that board though most are a little old. hope this helps

 

[BelgyFaeEK]

have you tried taken out wireless card un installing drivers and see if it runs ok without it

I didnt install a wireless card, am using a wireless dongle thru the usb connection.

And so I tried without the dongle and yes it still freezes, will look for more updates on asus clean out inside and then take it from there.

 

[notmeatall3]

Erm what is thermal compound and where ya get it?

at Maplin £3.49
or PC World at 7.99
or any other computer shop.

Strange been thinking and it never done this until i got my wireless connection sorted, coincidence i hope

Many things could cause it to freeze. Overheating on CPU. Overheating on a bit of hardware. Driver conflict. Software Conflict. System Error. Faulty hardware.

One thing to try Hit f8 as windows starts to load and go into safemode with networking support. If it doesn't crash then this should illimintate software issues.

Go into bios enable reset of ESCD data. and also turn on the option for PnP OS. Reinstall the drivers with updated ones(search google for any issues involving driver faults).

If available when the computer freezes turn off immidiately and start again go into bios and see what the system and cpu temp are.

 

[Jackel]

I have had very similar problems last couple of weeks, random freezing. Today i have totally stripped it all down everything and cleaned it thoroughly, hoover and small dry paintbrush, reapplied thermal grease and reseated everything updated all drivers and so far so good got to be worth a try, it gets on your tits doesn't it ? lol.

 

[BelgyFaeEK]

Not half mate, but well am on here from my parents pc, bleeding thing now not working at all


getting a repeated one long beep, so think my graphics card is dead