I posted this before in the XP thread:
I’ve got a hugely irritating problem, and a big post to go with it ….I'm not sure if this is an XP problem or a hardware problem, but I'll explain what is happening...
I recently built a new computer (a little over a month ago) with the help of a comp sci friend who has a built a bunch. We had no problem putting it together, except for a little difficulty with the heat sink that came with the processor, which scared the crap out of me – but then we got everything running without a CPU problem. I installed windows XP Pro, and it did freeze forcing me to restart the install twice. Once it was installed though I had pretty much no problem installing everything. I think at first my computer hung a couple times, which I attributed to not having all of the XP updates, or little hardware problems. As time went on my computer was better. Just over a week ago I took my sister’s comp in for a tune up and I got the XP SP2 from the computer store. They installed it on my sister’s comp, so when I came home I installed it on mine. After that the computer froze a few times over the course of a couple days, so I assumed there was something funky with SP2. I uninstalled it and reinstalled SP1. I had no more problems for a couple days until today when my computer froze after Halo was exited and winamp 5.04 was playing. The computer speaker was beeping repeatedly so I turned the system off. I turned it on again earlier this evening and in about half an hour it has hung 3 or 4 times. All while IE and winamp were open. So, I have no clue what is going on. I’m typing this in word and saving it, hoping the computer won’t freeze!!
Here are my full computer specs:
Windows XP Version 2002 SP1 (now)
P4 2.8E 1MB
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe (ver 1016.001 BIOS)
Sapphire Radeon 9600 256MB
Maxtor 120GB 7000 RPM, 8MB
Western Digital 80GB 7000 RPM, 8MB
Syntech 256 MB DDR400 RAM
Plextor PX-708A DVD +/- RW
Regular old monitor, Logitech keyboard and mouse (both PS2)
Antec case + 375W SmartPower PS
I have both ad-aware and Spybot installed and have run them recently. I have McAfee Enterprise 7.1 and the on-access scan running.
Okay, the only two things I can think of are:
The RAM is no-name, and I was little worried about that when I bought it, but I’m not a hardware wizard so I’ve no idea if that could be causing these problems.
Installing and then uninstalling SP2 and then installing SP1 did a number on something?
Just of note there have been a few strange things happening with my computer over the past couple weeks:
• 2 or 3 times I’ve lost the internet connection (that goes through my dad’s router) but there’s been nothing wrong with my Ethernet connection or the LAN connection – then it randomly works again on it’s own or after a restart.
• When I restarted this evening, using the physical reset button on the computer, there was some sort of error at the boot saying that the BIOS was messed up (I can’t remember the message) and it was looking for a CD to boot something from…I restarted it again, and it worked. The computer froze again a little while later and this time when I restarted it the ASUS POST reporter (that irritating chick’s voice ) was reporting: system fail, CPU check. I turned the system off and restarted it, but it booted fine. WEIRD! Then I think it may have hung again after that. I have monitored the temperature of my cpu and case while running some programs, it never goes above 45C for the cpu and 30C for the case.
Well, the computer hasn’t hung since I started writing this (a 2nd time) and I don’t have winamp 5.04 running – every time my comp has frozen it has either been running, winamp 5.04, Thief 3 or Halo, or Internet Explorer. Anyway, I really need some help with this. I do a lot of video editing on my computer, and it’s really important that it doesn’t hang!! If this needs to be moved to a different thread then that’s perfectly cool. If someone has ANY ideas please post them! Or you can even email me at
taiters13@hotmail.com …. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!
-Melissa
Help -->computer is freezing randomly
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