Pulling my hair out

Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
Win2k on my wife's machine is driving us bonkers. It freezes. Sometimes on startup. Sometimes when idle. Sometimes when being used. Everything seems to be in order. It just stops. Power off is the only method to get it back.

Win2K (up to date)
Soyo K7VTA
Duron 1.2
Maxtor 40GB HDD (brand new, today-the old Maxtor 27GB did it too)
3 stick 128 PC133 SDRAM
GF Mx 420
Aureal sound card
Asus 52x cd-rom
Nic card
400W PS
case is open


Any suggestions? Please...
 
Clean all the fans and/or heatsinks. Take them out and clean the fans with a toothbrush, the heatsinks I always just wash in the sink with the sprayer.

Sounds like an overheating problem. Doesn't happen to sit right by a floor vent, does it?
 
Nope, not by a vent. Damnit, I was hoping I wouldn't have to pull it apart. :(
 
Haven't installed any new software or hardware?
Checked for Klez or w32blaster?
Can you conveniently check the RAM?

Those are the first ones to pop to mind this early in the morning. I had a Klez infestation a few months ago and none of the virus scanners would find it but the computers would randomly freeze (XP and 2K). You can find it in your system logs if you have it.
 
On second thought, I did pull it apart & re-do the heatsinks...a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten.

I'll ran a full Norton scan also-I'll do it again to be sure.

That's why this is driving me nuts. All the obvious steps have been taken & it still does it.

I even moved & reseated the RAM (I suspect a bad stick) but tthey all test okay.
 
Check the event log in administrative tools. May be some clue there.

Downloaded any updates from the Windows update site lately? I did a couple of months ago and have been getting explorer.exe app errors ever since. I also d/l some nvidia driver updates that didn't want to work with my Dell machine.
 
I'll ran a full Norton scan also-I'll do it again to be sure.
Click to expand...
Norton didn't find klez on the machines that have Norton here at work (neither did anything else). Seems I remember it hides from virus scanners somehow. When I get a few more minutes I'll see if I can find my notes.
 
Does win2k have restore points that you can roll back like you can with win xp?

I am in the habit of forcing it to creat a restore point before I update any drivers or install any windows updates.... So far this year Ive had one crash with an automatic MS update, one with a sound driver update, and one with some free ware I installed.

Also is it possible that the heat sink isnt seated properly and your computer is overheating...do you a temperature monitor for your mobo or maybe you can just spot check it in bios.

Had any power surges lately?

Any new software or free ware installed or bios settings changed?


Try MS config and shut down everything in the the startup menu and then if that doesnt work shut down the services too. Then you can go back and one by one enable them until you find the problem (I have most of that crap off all the time)

Go into your bios and re-set everything to the most conservative fail safe settings.
 
2K has no msconfig.

It's sporadic so the servives solution could take forever.

I was running that as you typed chcr & it found......................























Nothing.
 
yea.

They show nothing unusual...the only warning is from the remote access & it just says it can't reset LANA. That has happened & it didn't shut down.
 
Gonz said:
yea.

They show nothing unusual...the only warning is from the remote access & it just says it can't reset LANA. That has happened & it didn't shut down.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that wouldn't do it. What about running services. You might make a list of all the services running that you don't recognize and go to blackviper, http://www.blackviper.com/WIN2K/servicecfg.htm , and see if they're all legit. Looking more and more like the RAM though, isn't it.
 
Cool. I've been trying to find that site (had it once). Thanks.

I'll look at all the services but I'm failrly certain they're correct. The RAM; it seems that one time I got an error, tested & all was "well". I still think that's the problem. Hard to tell when they test okay & I've been too lazy to pull one...blah blah blah.
 
Well, if that turns out to be it, I have another stick just like it you can have. Than you could have a spare! :D
 
What a crock of....

This problem never went away. I installed XP sometime along th eway & it also did the exact same thing. Made quicken hugely entertaining to say the least.

Last week, Momma said enough is enough. So I ordered this. The XFX NF24-ALH nForce2 mobo. Cheap & Tiger is an overnight delivery from here. :D

So far, 2 days & not one crash. Anybody know who they are? Not much info on a quick sweep of google.

Anybody want to buy a semi-broken K7VTA-Pro? ;)
 
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