Help!

[pvtflesher]

My PC freezes at random. I'll be lucky to finish writing this. After it freezes I can't move the mouse, ctrl, alt, del or absolutely anything! I have to turn it off. When trying to turn it back on it seems as though it freezes. Power comes on but my bios won't even come up. I talked to Sir_Sid and he recommended that I write this forum. I have tried to pull my cmos, I have also looked at system errors and I have a 4. These are ATAPI. "The device device/IDE/IDE Port 1 did not respond within the timeout period." I have a 5002US Compaq Presario with an 800MHz AMD Duron Processor. In it is a Western Digital 80 gig hard drive. I went to the site and ran their diagnostic software and my harddrive passed their test. I have changed the IDE cable a couple of times and I cannot figure out what else to do. Please help! I started tallying up how many times I had to turn the computer off and on again to get it to boot. One time It was 57 times off and 57 times on. After it froze, it took me 107 times turning it off and 107 times turning it on! It always comes back on eventually at least for a min or two but this is getting very frustrating.

Please help

flesher728th

[shanenin]

your power supply may be going out, not giving enough juice to the hardrives to run them properly. I had a power supply go bad once, I could here the hardrives randomly shutting down and restarting(I would get some freezing). If you could, just try a new power supply, that may fix your problem. If that is not an option, check the voltages using a multimeter

http://www.hardwarelogic.com/news/136/ARTI...2006-03-25.html

Edited January 25, 2007 by shanenin

[pvtflesher]

I'll have to see if I have another power supply anywhere. Not sure that I still do. My cpu usage also is going up like 72% when I move a window. Or just moving the mouse can make it increase by 20%. I'm pretty sure this is not normal. Could this have anything to do with the power supply?

[garmanma]

I'll have to see if I have another power supply anywhere. Not sure that I still do. My cpu usage also is going up like 72% when I move a window. Or just moving the mouse can make it increase by 20%. I'm pretty sure this is not normal. Could this have anything to do with the power supply?

Any unusual processes running when the CPU spikes? Don't pay any attention to system idle process

Mark

[pvtflesher]

Don't really see any processes that shouldn't be there! I'm starting to think that I need to replace my motherboard.

[mikex]

Along the power supply line....

Unplug all usb devices that are not needed. unplug you cd rom(s)/dvd rom(s)/floppy drive. This will drop the power consumption from these devices. In the mean time try to find a power supply to swap just for troubleshooting purposes.

M

[martymas]

try pressing f8

as it is booting

this will take you too safe mode. then to safe mode in net working

and follow the screens

if it still freezes then i suggest you have a hardware driver problem

if it dosent freeze in safe mode

then you have an application problem

like spyware or virus

or malware

if you get to safe and it doesnt freeze

use your scanners

if you have any

for spyware and viruses

while your in safe mode

go to device manager

and update your hard ware drivers

these are only suggestions

and not a perminant fix

good luck

marty

[pvtflesher]

thanks marty. I did what you said and froze up while in safe mode. i noticed an exclamation mark beside my video driver. I thought no big deal i haven't installed my Nvidia driver since trying to reinstall windows. After that, i thought, 'i loaded an update for Nvidia before my computer started acting weird.' Maybe there was a problem and I didn't see it before. i reinstalled the driver. Now the exclamation mark is gone. Hopefully this will fix my problem. Also I ran spybot and only had one thing come up. I fixed that problem as well. Anyways time will tell. Thanks marty

[shanenin]

Power comes on but my bios won't even come up.

That statement pretty much rules out windows(drivers) being your problem. You should start ruling out faulty pieces of hardware.

[pvtflesher]

Yea, that didn't seem to work after all. I've tried ruling out hardware by taking everything possible out and adding one by one. It froze up while I had everything out of the computer. I think my motherboard is going bad. I suppose I should invest in a new comp.

[martymas]

yea i agree

normally if it freezes in safe mode

many times it is hard ware

the main culprit is incompatable ram or video drivers

but if you can pinpoint the trouble spot

we may be able to help

dont worry many of us has been there and done that

but i feel it is hard ware

good luck post back

and let us know what happens

marty

[shanenin]

Yea, that didn't seem to work after all. I've tried ruling out hardware by taking everything possible out and adding one by one. It froze up while I had everything out of the computer. I think my motherboard is going bad. I suppose I should invest in a new comp.

did you try a different power supply? If you did and that did not help, it probably is the mother board

Edited January 28, 2007 by shanenin

[Tootsdog9]

I would go with a psu swap or check the voltages and if that is ok then try a memtest. If a memtest shows all the ram is bad then it is likely a bad motherboard if you know the ram is good. That happened to be. It showed several sticks all bad when I knew they were not.

[Sir_Siddy]

Flesher, what happened with this? Just curious to see what worked out.