PC on XP Pro freezes

[Greg Masters]

Guys and girls

I've been struggling over the weekend with the youngster's PC. It's not a flash job - bought from PC World a couple of years ago with a 10 Gig disk and a 300MHz chip.

I wanted to hook her up to the net, so have set about building a wireless link to her bedroom. I have installed a wireless router (Linksys WRT54G) to which my PC is hard-wired. This bit all works well.

In her machine, I have installed a D-Link DWL-G520 wireless PCI Adaptor and thrown out the pre-installed dial-up modem. It was running on Windas '98, but I couldn't load the driver - so I cleaned the hard-disk and loaded XP-Pro together with a further 128Mb of RAM (over the initial 32Mb). The RAM is also from PC World and came in a box labelled 'Component Shop 128Mb PC100'.

It all works - except the PC freezes after about 10 minutes of use - the time varies a bit.

I've downloaded and installed all the latest significant XP updates from Microsoft - including the latest driver for the D-Link card. But it still freezes - each time requiring a power-off reboot.

As I've changed quite a bit of stuff, it's difficult to know what's going wrong. Have I got a dodgy RAM card? Are there known problems with the D-Link card? Is the XP-Pro flawed?

Any ideas?



Greg

 

[Mick_rw]

Checks...

Did you have any problems with the PC before you upgraded to XP / New RAM / Wireless.

If not I would suggest you uninstall the wireless hardware / software and see if you get the same problem, if you do remove the 128MB RAM, it will still work but will take a very long time to boot with only 32MB, or put the 128MB RAM in your PC and see if that causes any problems.

Usually when you get these types of problems they are generally relate to the new hardware / software drives.

Mick

 

[TERRY RYAN]

strange but true

Whats going on sorry to hijack your thread Greg but this is the only way I can post a new thread for some reason I cannot find
post a new thread button its disappeared
and the other thing is I seem to be getting emails form post master saying my emails are not going But I am not sending any emails to anyone this has only happened twice so far

I am running norton updated and also ad-aware but virus has been detected
any suggestions

Oh I am a forum sponsor

 

[markyp]

I agree that it is more likely to be drivers than memory but sometimes it does fail. To check it download the small utility from microsoft. This creates a bootable disk and peforms a number of tests on the memory - if it passes th extended tests then it is all fine.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Try then booting into safe mode with netwroking - although most of your software wont run it will allow you to see if the machine crashes with very few drivers running.

Since building it have you reinstalled the following (usually in this order):

Motherboard latest bios (if you hadnt ever uograded it you may need it for a os that was written after the motherboard was made)
Motherboard drivers
graphics card drivers


Finally when you restart XP does it tell you why it crashed (it should on XP home but sorry - dont have much experience of XP Pro).. Certainly try:

Go to the Start Menu, then to Settings, then to the Control Panel. Go to Administrative Tools. Then event viewer then Click on Error Log.

Good luck!

 

[Fanum]

This might sound silly but it also makes a difference where you physically put the cards in the expansion slots.....if the graphics card is in an agp socket ( a shorter than normal brown slot) then the network card should be in the next slot down i think, followed by the sound card, then the others like scanner card, tv card etc.....if it's a PCI type graphics card it should alwas come first, then the network card etc....

Check with the web site of your Motherboard and it may well say this and will list any peculiarities if there are any.......but i had a similar problem with a scsi scanner card and found that it just wouldnt work in one of my slots......and it wasnt just that physically removing it and reinstalling it forced windoes to re-see it afresh...i tried reversing the problem and it repeated itself.

odd.

 

[adamski49]

Could it be as simple as not enough memory? I thought XP needed 256Mb minimum to work properly. On top of that a 300Mhz processor might struggle a bit.

Windows 98 is less memory hungry but not much good if you can't ge the drivers to load.

Adam

 

[Greg Masters]

Could it be as simple as not enough memory? I thought XP needed 256Mb minimum to work properly. On top of that a 300Mhz processor might struggle a bit.

Adam

Thanks for the input, but the PC meets all the XP minimum system requirements

Greg

 

[cookie]

my 2p.

PCI slot immediately under AGP slot is often advised to be left empty if AGP slot is used.

XP will run on 128MB RAM. i installed it on my mates athlon 700 & it's ok. 256 is a good idea though.

a 300mhz CPU is rather underpowered for xp. i did hear someone say they had it running fine on a 486 a while back

freezes etc. that occur after a while, your 10 mins say, are often related to excess heat. is the heatsink on the cpu seated correctly? thermal paste applied/working correctly?
try running it with the side panel off, possibly with a desk fan blowing in to test.

personal experience says that RAM that is not supplied by crucial, or of similar high quality, often causes problems.
ditto power supplies, but probably not in your case.

take every thing out of the pc that is not needed. network cards etc. remove drivers & see if it runs ok to isolate culprit.

that may be 12P

xp minimum system requirements err towards lesser specs to sell more software.
doubt it's an issue for you, as you have installed a copy of xp pro that retails at twice the value of the pc it's installed on, i guess you did not swell sir bills coffers much

 

[Greg Masters]

xp minimum system requirements err towards lesser specs to sell more software.
doubt it's an issue for you, as you have installed a copy of xp pro that retails at twice the value of the pc it's installed on, i guess you did not swell sir bills coffers much

Erm, I wouldn't like to say!


Thanks for all the suggestions, guys - I'm working my way through them.

I took the RAM back to PC World and made them swap it for another box. They confirmed that it was the right speed for the mother-board and suggested that I try running the 128Mb card without the original 32Mb card. I've done that, and it still freezes, so I suspect that it's not the RAM.

I've just removed the D-link card and I'll see how long it goes without that. i plan to ring the D-Link helpline tomorrow to see if there are any known problems like this.

Greg

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

i'd go for the excess heat problem - have you checked the cpu fan and heatsink for dust ?

Run with the covers off for a while.

Is it a cyrix cpu ? could be a problem.

Phil

 

[Greg Masters]

The D-Link card is looking like it is the culprit.

I loaded the latest driver for it from the MS site last night but it still froze. Tonight I removed that s/ware and loaded the driver from the D-Link site and it still froze.

But if I take the card out, the PC runs fine.

D-Link get the phone call tomorrow.

Greg

 

[Fanum]

i'd go for the excess heat problem - have you checked the cpu fan and heatsink for dust ?

Run with the covers off for a while.

Is it a cyrix cpu ? could be a problem.

Phil

Just as a point of interest, and i know this sounds arse-about-face, but PC's usually run hotter with the side panel off.....they're usually fairly well designed so that air 'flows' through and removing the panel doesnt allow circulation........

I have a set of sensors in mine and it certainly stays cooler on the HD, GPU and CPU with the side on.

Odd huh?

 

[cookie]

Just as a point of interest, and i know this sounds arse-about-face, but PC's usually run hotter with the side panel off.....they're usually fairly well designed so that air 'flows' through and removing the panel doesnt allow circulation........

I have a set of sensors in mine and it certainly stays cooler on the HD, GPU and CPU with the side on.

Odd huh?

interesting. guess it depends on the layout, position of fans etc.

i had to deal with d-link technical support once, very helpful ppl i found

 

[Greg Masters]

I've been on to D-Link (helpful).

They suggest checking for the latest BIOS update and setting the Wireless Zero Configuration to 'Disable'.

What ever happened to Plug & Play?



Greg

 

[Fanum]

I've been on to D-Link (helpful).

They suggest checking for the latest BIOS update and setting the Wireless Zero Configuration to 'Disable'.

What ever happened to Plug & Play?



Greg

'fraid you've made the classic mistake there Greg......

PnP doesn't in fact stand for Plug and Play....it is of course Plug in and Piss about.....

 

[cookie]

i thought it was "plug & pray"

 

[Greg Masters]

I've been on to D-Link (helpful).

They suggest checking for the latest BIOS update and setting the Wireless Zero Configuration to 'Disable'.

Right, I've done all that (the BIOS upgrade was fairly interesting!) and it still freezes.

The D-Link card remains favourite as it still runs OK without it.

Another night gone - this is getting tedious!



Greg

 

[Greg Masters]

a 300mhz CPU is rather underpowered for xp.

I misread the screen - it's 500Mhz.

I've decided to take to D-Link card back to the vendor and get a Linksys card instead. We'll see what that does!



Greg

 

[Greg Masters]

I misread the screen - it's 500Mhz.

I've decided to take to D-Link card back to the vendor and get a Linksys card instead. We'll see what that does!



Greg

Yep, that's done the trick - it's streamed the radio for the last hour without problems!

Thanks to the guys who offered suggestions.

Greg