PC freezing/locking up

[John Roberts]

In the last couple of weeks it has simply stopped working without warning, the first thing I notice is that the cursor doesn't move, and the picture on the screen just feezes. Nothing I do has any effect, not even Alt/Control/Delete. I switch it off by pressing the Off button for a few seconds.

Any suggestions as to where to start?

 

[roddy]

Hard drive?
Does it still sound like it's working it'll sound like an erratic cricket if okay if it gives off a regular ticking noise then it's on its way out best to back up and replace it

 

[John Roberts]

Hard drive?
Does it still sound like it's working it'll sound like an erratic cricket if okay if it gives off a regular ticking noise then it's on its way out best to back up and replace it

Well, blow me, the bugger's gone again, three minutes after I got your reply. I do have an iPad so I can keep in touch with a bit of luck. I did listen to the hard drive and it did seem to sound OK, but it was hard to be certain over the sound of the cooling fan. As before, I switched off by holding the on/off button down for a few seconds.

 

[sf23]

it really could be anything from hardware to software
are you getting any error messages or anything popping up from the lower right corner?

what program are you running when it happens or does it happen regardless of what your doing?

how long until you do the hard shutdown (holding the power button down to turn off)?

have you run your anti-virus etc. scans recently?

are windows and anti-virus updates run regularly?

have you run any registery editing tools (CCleaner, etc.) or "performance boosting" programs recently?

try (with a lot of patience) just leaving it alone and seeing if an error message comes up after a while, that may give more of an idea

which version of windows are you using?
cos this doesn't happen on Mac or Linux

 

[shugie]

Open it up and check the cooling fins for the processor are not full of clag, and that all the fans spin without making much bearing noise.

 

[John Roberts]

I've hardly used it since my last posts, the iPad seems to do virtually all I need a 'puter for. But not quite all, and it's still misbehaving. To sum up:

• The PC freezes after anything from on start up to possibly half an hour of use.
• It happens when different programs are running.
• I have to hold the off switch down for about ten seconds for a hard shut down.
• Anti-virus scans: not run any for some months, it was scanned a year or so ago but found nothing.
• CCleaner and performance boosting progs, none used.
• No error message has come up.
• Windows Vista.
• I cleaned and dusted the guts of the tower about a year ago.

The last time I used it the hard drive seemed to be varying in speed, but no regular ticking sound. From what I heard the other day this could be a mechanical fault on the hard drive, and that it could be repaired without loss of the info in it.

Is fixing this alleged mechanical fault an easy fix that your average high-street shop could fix, or is it a particularly tricky one that needs a top-notch engineer so as not to lose the info on it? It's over ten years old by now and has loads of valuable stuff on which will be backed up the minute it's fixed. I promise.

 

[Tobers]

I have suffered from exactly the same problem. It is very frustrating and difficult to get to the root cause.

To temporarily solve the problem, I would boot up my PC, then once it was up & running, restart it straight away. Once restarted, it would never crash.

If I didn't restart it, it would always crash some random number of minutes later. Same symptoms - mouse stutters then freezes, display goes blank and it just crashes.

I made a number of changes and one specifically made a big difference, and that was to replace the CPU heat sink and CPU fan. I did this to improve the cooling of the PC, not actually to fix this problem, but it did fix it. I put a self-contained water-cooled CPU cooler in. Part of doing this involved cleaning and replacing the heat transfer paste that is used to have a good link between the heat sink and the CPU.

This sort of makes sense as I think the problem was temperature related. It could be the CPU fan, or the paste, or something else related.

Since I did the cooler change, it has not crashed once.

 

[cookie]

that rather reinforces shugie's diagnosis.

if it's not that, my next port of call would be the psu overheating, but i think that's less likely in normal use.

 

[John Roberts]

Hi, Tobers.

As the freezing can happened in half a minute of start up I doubt that it's temperature-related. I should have said that when it freezes the screen stays the same (ie it doesn't go blank) and the cursor won't move either. The bastard.



PS thanks Cookie too, just missed your post before replying.

 

[Fanum]

Unplug everything.......all USB devices, external hard drives etc .

Just leave the mouse and screen attached.

See if it freezes up for a bit......if it doesn't, plug the hardware in one bit at a time until it starts freezing up again.

If on the other hand it still freezes with only Mouse and screen attached, try another mouse....if it STILL freezes, it's an internal problem rather than a hardware conflict with stuff dangling off the ports

This can be caused by many things, from a RAM chip not seated properly (the case only needs to be tipped a little to retrieve that pencil that just ran under the case to flex and pop a chip out a little) right through to software or hardware problems

The last time I had it though, it was a USB webcam that was ferked.......I binned it and never had the same problem again

It's an easy test too

 

[Irishdude]

Try start the computer in safe mode by turning it on and pressing the F8 key when it starts to start up,
This will start windows in safe mode with all device drivers turned off it will look strange because all the video drivers and sound drivers will not be loaded.
when you start computer in safe mode you can choose with network support then you should be able to use internet,
If after a while it crashes then I would open it up and give the insides of the case a hoover out to clear the fins on the devices of dust and cak and so on.
If you have never cleaned it I would do that inanyway
next time you start the computer normally everything will be back to starting normally when you don't press F8 key.
Next check to see if you have the latest drivers for the hardware, if you have a nvidia video card check the site for new drivers for that card, same if you have a ATI video card check which you have and get latest drivers for it .

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

go to http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ download the CD image and burn it to CD. Restart the computer and boot from the cd and in the menu go to mini XP. Once booted you will get the old XP desktop and in the start menu you will see Hiren tools. Open that and in the menu you will see testing tools. Pick one of them and start a full test. This will hammer the different parts of the machine (processor, memory, video, ect) and if it locks up doing this you will see why. If it doesn't lock up then its software related. Maybe do a system restore back to before you started getting issues and see if that works. It might actually just be easier and quicker to stick the windows disk in or the recovery disc and either repair or reinstall than try and track it any further but thats up to you.

 

[John Roberts]

Sorted.

Just been browsing through my old posts and in view of all your kind interest I thought I really ought to give some feedback. As it turned out the young man (it seems they are always young men?) sorted the problem virtually immediately, he said the paste between the umm ... CPU ??? and its heatsink had dried up, he put some fresh stuff on and Robert turned out to be my uncle, and that it was the carrot that was the job.

So it seems that Tobers was right after all and that my response was wrong. All very well, but just remember that nobody likes a know all...


Thank you all.