This all started like yestersay or maybe the day b4 that can't really remember after having problems which i thought were because of the OS i formatted the hdd, but afetr xp has installed it will now and again stop responding and will do nothing at all i can still move the mouse on the screen and sometimes it will get back to normal but 9 out 10 i have to press the damn reset button, i tried swapping the ram around but nope no luck, anybody got any ideas? btw its a ST3160021A Barracuda 7200.7 (120gb)
check the motherboard for can shape objects which are a type of capacitor. see if the tops are flat & not domed
Sorry i dont understand. http://www.msi.com.tw/images/product_img/mbd_img/6728v2.0_gold.jpg Theres a pic can you point it out to me.
across the top of the cpu bracket is 8 caps, 3 along side the serial/parallel connectors plus other caps scattered across the board
There flat. are you thinking this could be a mobo prob and not a hdd prob. Also i just replaced the IDE cable and so far so good but am not holding my breath.
it was pointing to a motherboard problem & the fact it is still running, touch wood after replacing the ide cable so was not an actual hd problem
Well after posting that message about replaceing the cable it done it again so i took out the hdd in my ps2 which is the same make & model and put it in the pc, so if it starts it again then i'll know it's not a hdd prob, i don't really care if it is the mobo because they don't cost too much i just hope it's not anything like the gfx card or the cpu but am sure i would get the beeps on startup if it was one of them, i really do hope it's just the hdd coz it's under guarantee.
Well after trying another hdd it's still not working right, It seemed for a good while that it was fixed but nope just keeps doing the same thing over & over agian, looks like am going to have to go back to my 1.6 p4 and super fast 533 fsb mobo much to my anger as i don't even know why the hell this is happening all i know is the damn OS stops responding, i even tried setting it up as a secondry master just to see if it could have maybe been the 1st ide port, nope.
I just tried some other ram and the pc would not start up, it turned on then it turned it's self off and all along the power button would not work at all but as soon as i put my other ram it booted right away. I also just tried a different gfx card and i don't think any off the 2 gfx cards are the prob coz when i try it with a game it loads up but then hangs and i have to press the power button to restart the os, i cant find the psu right now but i will look that out and try it. could the psu cause things like this to happen?
it is possible but not certain. there is 5 things that can go wrong with computers- humans, software, mechanical, electrical & electronics. anyone or a combination of & god knows what the results are!!
In case i have to buy a new mobo what is your opinion on this board. http://www.asrock.com/product/product_p4v88.htm
Is XP upto date - ie updates installed and also is SP2 installed aswell? Motherboard updates - BIOS/Chipset drivers etc PCI cards causing issues - uninstall/drivers etc
I reinstalled the chipset/audio & gfx drivers so there up2date however i do not have sp2 installed but i've never had a prob like this b4 when not having sp2 on my system, there's a few things that stand out 1. my mointer was flickering pinkish for like two weeks and has now stopped 2. the speeker makes odd sounds which maybe down to the keyboard but somethings does not feel right as it did it when itwas brand new 3. last weekend the pc started to reboot its self 4. os started to hang after reinstalling the os, which is not down to the hdd. I've been reading the FAQ's on the game that keeps hanging's website which they sayed it was a driver/hardware prob which could have ment it was the gfx card but i've tried two diffrent cards and still hangs. This is really starting to feel like a mobo prob but i have to rule out things like the psu 1st b4 i go out and pay for a new board, am 100% sure that it's not a RAM prob as there lest than 2 months old and there 2 512mb daul channel sticks so if one was damaged the other one would not work and the mobo would not load as i found out when just trying 1 stick.
You know you have done a comlete reinstall, if you just run XP with all the updates (exc SP2) and no other software does it still occur? Like you, better to rule everything out before the 'spend'..........
Yeah still did it when i tried that last night. It could be down to the 40gb hdd coz as soon as i took that out it worked for ages but hangs with that game which still leeds me to beleave it's a hardware prob but what bit of hardware i don't have a clue
Definately a strange one. When it hangs, can you press ctrl/alt and delete and bring up anything there? If so, check your memory useage and CPU useage, are they maxed out?
Yeah i can press it and it will come up and i can play with for a bit like i can tell it to restart but it does not always do anything and i need to press the power button it for it to restart, sometimes thou it will restart but most times it's the power button method. The ram memory is fine never goes to the point of maxing out. It only seems to do this when i try and play Cossacks 2, i can't even end the process but i can play other games fine, it’s like it seems to be something different each time and i still don’t have a clue. Am going to try and get a hold of a friend so i can test the individually but that may not be for a few days.
Could be graphics related this, I know you have tried other cards, but it could be AGP related. Can you remove it and put in a PCI graphics card, this could rule that out, and also maybe a setting in the BIOS regarding to AGP settings aswell..................... And like you, I hate that crazy frog critter, if I ever meet that guy, he'll know what it's like to be a frog.......LOL
