PC Freezing..

[Riley]

Here am I again, I am beginning to develop a real love hate relationship with my electronic friend, rather more than hate than love right now!

 

A couple of months ago PC started randomly freezing. I would power down then restart; all ok again for weeks, then bang again...a quick Google makes it look like a hardware conflict though i cannot think what I havent got anything new. Device manager doesnt show any conflict says everything working ok. Eventually I arrived at the point where it would barely stay booted for more than a few mins, advice was maybe overheating ( it is hot here and fans etc had not been cleaned properly for a while) good clean of fans made it ok for a couple of days, BUT now I am back to square one.

I ran speccy, it shows CPU running at 56c but graphics card running at 86C??!!

 

If I try and reboot too quickly i get that bad beep... just one quite long one and it doesnt boot at all. Leave it a few mins then it does boot with that nice little happy beep.

 

Anybody seeing anything they recognise ? Where do I start to diagnose my problem?

 

So many of you seem to eat and sleep computers am hoping sometime will come up with something that doesn't mean me taking it to a repair place as there is no one here i would trust to do anything serious...........

 

Thanks in advance

[Newt]

I imagine you have an overheating issue as you seem to have suspected. The usual suspects are grunge inside the PC, bad fan, or a component going bad.

 

Laptop or desktop?

 

If desktop, have you opened the case to blow out the dust (use canned/compressed air)? If laptop, have you cleared away any dust blocking the cooling ports on the bottom (canned air again)?

 

Sorry you happened to be posting when the forum database was going crazy. That doesn't usually happen although until you reach 15 posts, yours won't appear until a mod has read and approved them.

[Riley]

Desk top.

All cleaned out. It was then good for a day and half then next morning started again.

 

Was getting really worried I had a real problem as I couldn't post!

I've not got many posts but I have got more than 15! I eat the fish that my brother catches (Dan) so I'm kinda peripheral to all the activity! But you have all been very helpful on techie stuff for me; I do have a knowledge problem (lack of!) here in Corfu!

 

Reading some forum stuff some people's graphics cards seem to go over 100c which makes mine look tame! Question is, after cleaning whats the next step?

 

This was the details that speccy gives me... this was before it heated up too much! Does it tell you anything useful?

 

Monitor

 

Name SyncMaster on NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS

 

Current Resolution 1360x768 pixels

 

Work Resolution 1360x738 pixels

 

State enabled, primary, output devices support

 

Monitor Width 1360

 

Monitor Height 768

 

Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel

 

Monitor Frequency 70 Hz

 

Device \\.\DISPLAY1\Monitor0

 

GeForce 7300 GS

 

GPU G72

 

Device ID 10DE-01DF

 

Revision A2

 

Subvendor Gigabyte (1458)

 

Current Performance Level Level 1

 

Current GPU Clock 550 MHz

 

Current Memory Clock 800 MHz

 

Technology 91 nm

 

Die Size 77 nmІ

 

Transistors 112 M

 

Release Date Jan 2006

 

DirectX Support 9.0c

 

DirectX Shader Model 3.0

 

OpenGL Support 2.0

 

Bus Interface PCI Express x16

 

Temperature 63 °C

 

GPU Clock 550 MHz

 

Memory Clock 800 MHz

 

Driver nv4_disp.dll

 

Driver version 6.14.12.7533

 

ForceWare version 275.33

 

BIOS Version 5.72.22.43.00

 

ROPs 2

 

Shaders Vertex 4/Pixel 4

 

Memory Type DDR2

 

Physical Memory 128 MB

 

Virtual Memory 512 MB

 

Bus Width 64 Bit

 

Pixel Fillrate 1.1 GPixels/s

 

Texture Fillrate 1.1 GTexels/s

 

Bandwidth 12.8 GB/s

 

Count of performance levels : 1

 

Level 0

 

GPU Clock 550 MHz

 

Memory Clock 800 MHz

 

Thank for your time Newt.

[Manxman]

Is the fan on the graphic card working when you boot the PC? and have you cleaned the fan on the card. I take my graphic cards out every couple of months and clean the fans, the amount of dust and grunge they collect is amazing.

 

Try running the PC with the case open, as long as no kids can get at it, lay it on it's side and you should be able to see if the fan is rotating.

Can you use the Sniping Tool or Screen Capture to show the Summary from Speccy? As it must be pretty warm out in Corfu now.

 

My two NVidia's idle at 61/63 0c. NVidia say a 100 0c is not a problem, but if you believe that.........

Edited July 29, 2011 by Manxman

[Riley]

Is the fan on the graphic card working when you boot the PC? and have you cleaned the fan on the card. I take my graphic cards out every couple of months and clean the fans, the amount of dust and grunge they collect is amazing.

 

Try running the PC with the case open, as long as no kids can get at it, lay it on it's side and you should be able to see if the fan is rotating.

Can you use the Sniping Tool or Screen Capture to show the Summary from Speccy? As it must be pretty warm out in Corfu now.

 

My two NVidia's idle at 61/63 0c. NVidia say a 100 0c is not a problem, but if you believe that.........

 

on office PC now so will do summary later, but can say I had to get a friend who knows (not here now) to do the cleaning so know the fan is functioning and is clean. Was told taking the sides off and using pc was not good as the fans create a through draft which works better with sides on?

 

I have never tried taking things apart inside the pc.. so bit nervous of doing so without knowing whats what!!

 

Actually its only about 28c today. Pc sits under my desk, same place it has for last 3 years without problem, its been a LOT hotter than it is now, so it seems to me its something that has happened now or changed or broken? ! Am I being simplistic?

CPU and Mother board both running around 55c.

[Riley]

OS snap shot at start up:

 

Operating System: MS Windows XP Home 32-bit SP3

 

CPU: Intel Pentium E2200 @ 2.20GHz 44 °C

 

Conroe 65nm Technology

 

RAM: 2.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz (5-5-5-15)

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35C-DS3R (Socket 775) 44 °C

 

Graphics : SyncMaster (1360x768@70Hz)

 

128MB GeForce 7300 GS (Gigabyte) 60 °C

 

Hard Drives: 244GB Western Digital WDC WD25 00JB-00R SCSI Disk Device (SCSI)

 

Optical Drives : HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H58N SCSI CdRom Device

 

Audio: USB Audio Device

 

Any secrets of my problem revealed there?

[Riley]

OS snap shot at start up:

 

Operating System: MS Windows XP Home 32-bit SP3

 

CPU: Intel Pentium E2200 @ 2.20GHz 44 °C

 

Conroe 65nm Technology

 

RAM: 2.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz (5-5-5-15)

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35C-DS3R (Socket 775) 44 °C

 

Graphics : SyncMaster (1360x768@70Hz)

 

128MB GeForce 7300 GS (Gigabyte) 60 °C

 

Hard Drives: 244GB Western Digital WDC WD25 00JB-00R SCSI Disk Device (SCSI)

 

Optical Drives : HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H58N SCSI CdRom Device

 

Audio: USB Audio Device

 

Any secrets of my problem revealed there?

[Manxman]

So the snap shot is just after startup? Temperatures aren't too bad really for your climate, what do they look like after running for a couple of hours?

 

Just out of interest, did you update the NVidia drivers just before your problems started? I suspect so (ForceWare version 275.33) This was a real bum set of drivers NVidia posted, that bad they actually disabled the SLI control Panel Mode and caused major problems for a whole bunch of users. Check it out here http://forums.nvidia.com/

 

So much so that I went back Forceware 266.58 to get my PC to run properly. They do have a newer set released, I don't think I'll bother with them just yet.

 

If you have updated the drivers I'd try rolling them back to the previous version you were using.

[Riley]

So the snap shot is just after startup? Temperatures aren't too bad really for your climate, what do they look like after running for a couple of hours?

 

Just out of interest, did you update the NVidia drivers just before your problems started? I suspect so (ForceWare version 275.33) This was a real bum set of drivers NVidia posted, that bad they actually disabled the SLI control Panel Mode and caused major problems for a whole bunch of users. Check it out here http://forums.nvidia.com/

 

So much so that I went back Forceware 266.58 to get my PC to run properly. They do have a newer set released, I don't think I'll bother with them just yet.

 

If you have updated the drivers I'd try rolling them back to the previous version you were using.

 

 

after a couple of hours the cpu and mother board go to about 55/57 and graphics card to 86/87.. I havent seen it higher than that but whens its frozen i cant get back to speccy page to check!

 

No I updated the drivers after, and after it had been cleaned out which we thought would clear the problem... which it did for just a day. I am a read the manual after I have broken things person, and didnt see that forum, and didnt worry about the updated driver as i was sure i would be able to roll it back... but i couldn't , it said it had not got any stored drivers! Everything is functioning fine but the text is CRAP! I have middlegaed failing eyesight anyway so reading some text now is really hard. I have clear type, i have adjusted everything I can think of and it doesnt help....

 

so on the freezing issue do you really think the graphics card is the culprit? Though its hot it doesnt seem to be so hot when I read what temps gamers graphics cards get up to?

[Manxman]

Very difficult call, temps are higher than I'd want but seem to be in spec for your hardware. Have you had the case open to check that all the fans working. Don't overlook the fan on the Power Supply that's very important.

 

If they are all working it could be either a Software or Hardware conflict.

If I was in your position (Software or Hardware conflict) I'd back up my files, format the drive and do a clean install of Windows.

 

I do that annually any way just to get rid of some of the crap I gather, and have my own "workflow" for the re installation of my software. It probably takes longer than it should, but it works for me.

 

Get the side off and make sure your fans are working and don't forget the one on the PSU.

 

What part of Corfu are you in? We had a couple of holidays in Ipsos many years ago.