Help!!

[Freelancer]

My computer just.. freezes. All the time. Usually within 5 minutes of booting up. Without warning. Message short because it will do it again soon. Anyway, it's not software. Many a reformat and even disconnecting all IDE devices can attest to that. It has frozen within 1 second of rebooting before. It freezes in BIOS. It freezes in windows. It freezes without a hard drive. It freezes with an unformatted hard drive. (I've tried 2). It has frozen trying to reinstall Windows after a fresh format. This problem has been persisting for about a year and a half now, and it comes in cycles. About 6 months of hell, with this happening for about 5 days straight every 2 weeks or so, then about 6 months of no problems at all..

All hardware has been replaced except the RAM, power supply, and power cords. EVERYTHING else, and i mean everything else has been replaced. Even the mobo, yet the problem still persists. BTW: It is not a heat issue. I can assure you.

What can it be?!! Should I just go all out and replace the rest?!

EDIT: BTW, it's not a graphics card/display adapter problem, as I've run a TNT2, a GeForce2 MX and a GeForce2 Ti450, all with the same effect.

[This message has been edited by Freelancer (edited August 23, 2003).]

[DogSRoOL]

Could be the RAM or possibly your BIOS chip. I'm not an expert (yet), but you might want to look into those things.

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[DogSRoOL]

Also, if your motherboard manufacturor has a website, you can download a new version of BIOS from there and flash it to the chip using AWDflash. It's worth a shot.

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[Malus]

I would try replacing the last three things. If everything else has been changed, then one of the last three has to be the problem, right?

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[This message has been edited. Deal with it.]

[Freelancer]

It can't possibly be the BIOS, as this problem has persisted through multiple Mobos. I'm not sure, but I've used the original RAM and power supply throughout the whole ordeal..

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

[Emon]

Change your RAM, then. If you have any spare, try that, or if any other machines or friends' machines have what you use, then see if you can borrow.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

[std]

I've had some similar problems. Try checking:
1. the BIOS for the memory access time, make it lower (um...hope that's the english word)
2. changing the ram, in the end

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There are alternatives to fighting...

[NoESC]

sounds more like a power supply to me, especially if it is freezing in the bios, as i don't think much of your ram, if any, is being used yet. when power supplies start to go bad they make the computer randomly crash when the voltage or amps suddenly drop or rise. if you need an AT power supply i can give you one, just email me. if its ATX then i don't have any spare but tigerdirect.com should have them for around $20. also i would not try to flash the bios, cause if it crashes while its updating, your screwed...

[This message has been edited by NoESC (edited August 24, 2003).]

[DogSRoOL]

Actually, such a voltage or amp change would have to be quite dramatic. One of the most noteable things about digital systems is that relatively small voltage changes won't make a difference, hence binary. The values "0" and "1" generally represent certain voltage ranges. 0 usually represents a very small to no voltage ("off"), but not necessarily. But I'm not far along enough in my digital systems cirriculum to accurately troubleshoot device problems, so I'm afraid I'm going to be somewhat useless on the subject.

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[This message has been edited by DogSRoOL (edited August 24, 2003).]

[NoESC]

if the voltage that is going to the mobo drops even a little bit it will cause the pc to act strange, such as freezing up or random rebooting. i am a+ cert so i do know what i am talking about

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if i was me i would not say such things

[Freelancer]

Yes! Recently it has done some other strange things besides just freezing. It will randomly reboot for no reason, and sometimes it just 'zones out' freezing all input for maybe a minute then everything will 'come back up' the way it was before.

I'm definitely going to check into the power supply, thanks..

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

[DogSRoOL]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by NoESC:
if the voltage that is going to the mobo drops even a little bit it will cause the pc to act strange, such as freezing up or random rebooting. i am a+ cert so i do know what i am talking about</font>I'll take your word for it. I'm not even completely certain which components of a pc are digital and which are analog. http://forums.massassi.net/html/frown.gif


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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[Cool Matty]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by NoESC:
if the voltage that is going to the mobo drops even a little bit it will cause the pc to act strange, such as freezing up or random rebooting. i am a+ cert so i do know what i am talking about

</font>

That just irks me. Especially when I know A+ certified people who don't know anything, period.

But I would check the PS anyway, because this does sound like a PS problem.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

[Freelancer]

Mghmlmghhgmnnbbgmlgmhgl..

So..

3 weeks later, we *finally* get it back from the shop, them telling us the computer is 'fixed'. Well, it froze 4 times the first night. The following day, it was back up to its old games, freezing about 3-4 minutes after reboot.

I thought it was odd that they just took my advice on what was wrong and installed a new power supply (I should have done it myself in about 20 minutes the first time anyway) without doing hardly any testing on it at all. Thus them telling me it's 'fixed'. Strangely enough, the problem recurring gives me a peaceful sense of security, because there is now literally only 1 piece of hardware that I've kept throughout the ordeal.

The RAM.

Yes, throughout this problem persisting, I've replaced every %#&(@%**** piece of hardware in an attempt to cleanse myself of this horrible nightmare. Well now, every piece of hardware in my computer is mutually exclusive of those from before, and it has now been up and running for about 40 minutes with no weirdness (not to mention twice as much RAM! http://forums.massassi.net/html/biggrin.gif http://forums.massassi.net/html/biggrin.gif).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Emon knows his stuff, it would seem.

I felt pretty sure about the RAM being the problem for a number of funny reasons, though.. 1) It's the last piece of fricking hardware that hadn't been replaced, 2) The last time it froze before I decided to go buy some RAM, some weird patterns cam up on my screen, like a grid of psychedelic colors. It reminded me a ton of what would happen when NES cardtridges would screw up and display funkyness all over the screen, and those things basically are big chips of RAM.

http://forums.massassi.net/html/biggrin.gif Anyway, cheers to a problem solved.. I hope.

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Have a good one,
Freelancer