eMachine T1400 Locking Up - Help?

[mjpaquette]

I am working on a friends computer. He's got an eMachine 1400 which came with an Athlon 1600+ processor, 256MB ram. For the past few months, in the middle of some task, surfing the net, etc... the computer would just freeze. It wouldn't shut down, but the mouse and everything would freeze. It would require a hard power down (ctrl-alt-del wouldn't work).

Anyways, I took the computer, did a complete format and fresh install of XP Pro with service pack 2, and it is still locking up from time to time.

I was wondering if it's heat related, so I opened up and cleaned out the case (5 years of dust bunnies). I cleaned off the CPU fan blades, and got it running again, but it still froze on me. I tried dowloading some temp monitoring software, but it can never read a temp (it seems eMachines didn't spring for this feature?).

Can you recommend next steps? I won't mind spending some time on this, but I have no intention of spending any real money on it.

Do I need to improve the cooling?
Is the MB going bad?
Could it be bad memory?

In the meantime, I'm running it without the cover on to see if that helps. We'll see.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[jolancer]

download memtest86 and either use the "pre-compiled package for floppy" to boot from floppy disk, or the "ISO" to burn and boot from CD.

once you boot with memtest, it will automatically start, and run forever, it will report any Ram errors it finds, press escape any time to exit and restart. Let it at least make 1 Full pass. People let it run overnight for mission critical systems, but it probably not neccessary.(if memtest locks up, its not your Ram its either the CPU or MOtherboard <-- that happened to me). If your ram is bad it will report errors, not lockup.

http://www.memtest.org/

you can download and Run Prime95 to stress the CPU. once installed, runt its 'Torture test' on Max heat. if it locks up every time you Run Prime95 in a continouse patern, then it very well may be a heat issue... or it may allso report errors to you if your CPU or system is unstable.

If it Doesn't lock up in any continouse time patter each time you run Prime95 (locks up at randome times) then its probably not a heat issue.

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

 

[jeremy]

it cant be the ram , unstable ram causes random restarts/bsods/file curruption

anyway i bet the mobo capacitors are at fault, have a good look (perferably with a flashlight) , see examples
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195
bad capacitors can be replaced at any electronic repair shop it wouldnt cost much

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I would suspect a memory issue, but not an error... only a capacity issue. From what I have seen in the Windows forum, XP needs a bare minimum of 256MB's. The fact that this is an intermittant trouble, that only happens when performing a task, seems to further support this.

 

[jolancer]

keep in mind any of these suggestions may solve your issue but a lot of it is also system dependent.

for example - theres a old Dell laptop in my house thats 1.2ghz celeron 128mb's total system ram with 32mb shared onboard geforce go, running winXP Pro... and it has never locked up.

 

[mjpaquette]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll be running the CPU tests tonight. Yesterday I ran memtest and the computer locked up after ~250% complete - with zero errors. My argument against this issue being caused by insufficient memory is that the computer ran XP fine for 4 years and suddenly it started locking up. McAfee could have been a culprit, but I have not reinstalled it after the XP reinstall and it still crashes.

 

[jolancer]

If you booted memtest from floppy and ran it without windows and your Comp still locked up... that means it has nothing to do with Windows or its software/drivers... its a Hardware issue causing your lockups.

and i assume you mean after 25% complete?... if so that is very similar to how memtest locked up when i was testing a P4 that turnd out to be Defective.... The P4 would also lockup when running Prime95 from anyware between 30sec to 2min's.

 

[mjpaquette]

I ran prime95 tonight several times. I turned on the computer, downloaded and installed the program and immediately started running it (total time on before program started ~ 5-10 minutes)

Test 1: Froze after 34 seconds

Caught it after a few minutes. Powered down, restarted, and reran test immediately.

Test 2: Froze after 8 minutes

Came back after 40 minutes. Rebooted computer and started test again.

Test 3: Still running after 1 hour 18 minutes. I stopped it and ran the "high RAM" test rather than the high temp test.

Test 4: Still running after 24 minutes, and that's where I'm at right now.

Starting to think it's not heat related.

By the way, I have the case cover OFF for all these tests.

I bought a new stick of RAM to try.

COMPUSA guy said it might be the hard drive as well. Any thoughts?

 

[mjpaquette]

One more thing. After all this testing the processor heatsink is barely warm to the touch.

However, the VIA chip on the motherboard that's about 1 inch from the heatsink is too hot to touch for more than a split second. Is this abnormal?

 

[jeremy]

i tried hard but cant understand why you dont wanna check the mobo capacitors as i alredy suggested, its a very common reason for freezes