Trouble Shooting

[Myrrhlyn]

Hey all! My computer started behaving erratically (randomly freezing up, sometimes infinitely rebooting until forcing it off) so I backed up my personal files, loaded up my windows xp cd, booted from CD, deleted the partition, created a partition, reformatted, then re-installed the OS.

Booted up fine the first few times, but then wham! Froze again. Sometimes my comp will run just fine for an extended period of time. Other times, just a few minutes into logging in, it'll freeze on me. So I'm thinking it must be a hardware issue. I'd rather not have to rebuild my entire computer. Anyone ever have an experience like this? Any suggestions as where to start?


Windows XP SP2
AMD Athlon XP 1800
1.54 GHz
512MB RAM
don't know if you need any other info

Thanks in advance!

**Not sure if this is the place to post, so if a Mod wants to move it to a "correct" place, please do! Thanks!**

 

[dragonsprayer]

clean it the cpu is overheating - is it new?


could be memory - if you have 2 sticks pull one. if you have 1 stick try a different slot

 

[cmichael258]

Check your memory with Memtest86.

 

[johng24601]

Check for blown capacitors on the motherboard. Most of the athlon xp boards I've used all ended up with blown caps. That can cause the troubles you are having. The caps should all be flat on top. If one or more are raised/bubbled or leaking, then that is your problem. A good tech can replace them for you. Sometimes, though, if too many are bad, the board can't be fixed. But, it may be time for an upgrade anyway.

Good luck.

 

[englandr753]

Get a can of air, blow out the case and the psu to ensure airflow is good. Check all of your cable connections and check the mobo capacitors as advised above.

Try a single stick of ram as mentioned above.

Go into your BIOS and check the health menu to see if the cpu temp is in a safe temp range 30-40 degrees celcius.

If you still have a problem and you have a local computer parts store nearby you could go pick up another power supply and connect it outside of the case and reboot and test to see if it still freezes. If it does then its most likely the motherboard.

If you dont want to upgrade your entire pc you could likely get a similar performing mobo and cpu online to keep the cost down.

Or this could be your excuse to build a new system...