I'd appreciate a little help determining the source of the problem I'm having with my rig and some possible solutions.
I have a relatively recent rebuild (with used parts) that keeps freezing up randomly whenever I use moderate video applications. Specifically I notice it when I play online flash games, watch online videos, or play PC games saved on hard drive. It's not specific to any 1 browser (I tried 3 different ones). It doesn't happen on simple games like solitaire, minesweeper, etc. It doesn't happen when I'm only browsing the internet (no videos). It doesn't happen when I use my memory intensive work software.
When it does happen and I'm playing flash content on-line, maybe 1 out of 5 times the browser will suddenly quit and everything else will continue working fine, in which case I'm able to re-open the browser and continue what I'm doing. During most of the time, the whole system freezes up within 20 – 40 minutes of moderate video use. When it happens, the mouse and keyboard won't work and I need to do a hard reset. Once in a great while, like maybe 5% of the time, the system will freeze up during reboot, however will boot up just fine once I do a hard reset again.
I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software problem, but leaning toward the hardware because of the freeze-up during the reboot. I can probably safely rule out the video card as it seems to work fine and I have a spare card that works but the same problem is exhibited.
I bought this computer from a local guy who claims to recondition and resell computers for a living from his garage….kinda creepy guy who I have no wish to deal with ever again, even regarding this problem. It worked fine when I bought it, he had it running, but of course I didn't test it for this particular problem. I swapped in my new power supply, added a stick of 512 PC333 DDR Ram to the 1 he already had on there, added a second internal HD and added my DVD burner, then swapped in my marginally better Graphics card.
All I know about the motherboard is that it's an ABIT….full ATX size
The chip is an AMD Athalon XP 2400
Dynex ATX 400 Watt Power Supply
2 sticks of 512MB PC333 DDR RAM (probably diff manufactures)
N Vidia GeForce 3 V8200 T2 64MP Video Card (that's the better of the 2, lol)
Samsung SyncMaster 950P CRT Monitor; Diagonal Size: 19 in; Max Resolution: 1920 x 1440 / 64 Hz; Dot pitch: 0.26 mm
Runs Win XP Pro edition updated (including SP2)
Not sure if this makes a diff but I noticed a couple of utility programs designed to tweak the OS that came loaded with the computer, one is XP Smoker Pro, the other is Tweak UI, a power toy for Windows XP. These programs lead me to think that maybe the OS is not stable and thus the cause of the freeze ups?
I'd appreciate any help, as I'm kinda a noob to all this. BTW you guys have a great forum here. Just found it today and spent a good portion of it (time that I should've spent working! Lol) perusing through. Sure does a good job of “creating a need for wanting more!â€
Thaks,
Koakula
I have a relatively recent rebuild (with used parts) that keeps freezing up randomly whenever I use moderate video applications. Specifically I notice it when I play online flash games, watch online videos, or play PC games saved on hard drive. It's not specific to any 1 browser (I tried 3 different ones). It doesn't happen on simple games like solitaire, minesweeper, etc. It doesn't happen when I'm only browsing the internet (no videos). It doesn't happen when I use my memory intensive work software.
When it does happen and I'm playing flash content on-line, maybe 1 out of 5 times the browser will suddenly quit and everything else will continue working fine, in which case I'm able to re-open the browser and continue what I'm doing. During most of the time, the whole system freezes up within 20 – 40 minutes of moderate video use. When it happens, the mouse and keyboard won't work and I need to do a hard reset. Once in a great while, like maybe 5% of the time, the system will freeze up during reboot, however will boot up just fine once I do a hard reset again.
I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software problem, but leaning toward the hardware because of the freeze-up during the reboot. I can probably safely rule out the video card as it seems to work fine and I have a spare card that works but the same problem is exhibited.
I bought this computer from a local guy who claims to recondition and resell computers for a living from his garage….kinda creepy guy who I have no wish to deal with ever again, even regarding this problem. It worked fine when I bought it, he had it running, but of course I didn't test it for this particular problem. I swapped in my new power supply, added a stick of 512 PC333 DDR Ram to the 1 he already had on there, added a second internal HD and added my DVD burner, then swapped in my marginally better Graphics card.
All I know about the motherboard is that it's an ABIT….full ATX size
The chip is an AMD Athalon XP 2400
Dynex ATX 400 Watt Power Supply
2 sticks of 512MB PC333 DDR RAM (probably diff manufactures)
N Vidia GeForce 3 V8200 T2 64MP Video Card (that's the better of the 2, lol)
Samsung SyncMaster 950P CRT Monitor; Diagonal Size: 19 in; Max Resolution: 1920 x 1440 / 64 Hz; Dot pitch: 0.26 mm
Runs Win XP Pro edition updated (including SP2)
Not sure if this makes a diff but I noticed a couple of utility programs designed to tweak the OS that came loaded with the computer, one is XP Smoker Pro, the other is Tweak UI, a power toy for Windows XP. These programs lead me to think that maybe the OS is not stable and thus the cause of the freeze ups?
I'd appreciate any help, as I'm kinda a noob to all this. BTW you guys have a great forum here. Just found it today and spent a good portion of it (time that I should've spent working! Lol) perusing through. Sure does a good job of “creating a need for wanting more!â€
Thaks,
Koakula