Computer freezing (non-hardware related)

I have run Hot CPU Tester Pro and had my computer running at 100% usage for over 6 hours without it freezing, and all of my hardware has worked fine in the past, so I am fairly confident this is not hardware related. I have two fans inside my computer, and an oscillating fan on the outside keeping it cool.

I have run AVG Anti-virus, spybot search and destory, ad-aware, registry distiller, registry repair, AVG anti-rootkit, scan disc, and disk defragmenter.

Nothing really pops up except for a few empty registry keys that I can't get rid of.

I've even looked through hijackThis and haven't found anything that caught my eye.

Does anyone know of any other program that I could use to try to find the problem, or know what could be the problem? I am at a loss!


Symptoms of freeze:

no particular program is used (I've turned off just about every program at one point or another and still had it freeze on me)

Everything is unresponsive except for manual ejecting of the D and E drives

The "busy" light on my computer stays on constantly.

It has frozen when using both IE (6.0) and Mozilla Firefox


My copy of Windows XP is legal.

 

I'd also like to mention that it goes through bouts of freezing constantly (including during computer restart from time to time), to hardly freezing at all.

 

Hello, Evan

The options listed below are in no particular order that they should be tried in . . .

I'm a bit concerned by the "few empty registry keys" that you can't get rid of. Did this problem start after using one of the registry programs you mentioned? Registry corruption can cause all kinds of problems. Have you tried restoring the OS by using System Restore, and picking a restore point before the problem started?

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Plain old net-nasties . . .
Check Task Manager and see what tasks are running on your PC on a regular basis. Google them and see what you find out - you might be surprised (and horrified) by what you discover . . .
Have you tried to start the computer in safe mode? If so, does it lock up there also? If not, have you ran all your anti-virus and anti-malware apps in this mode?

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If you don't feel any of the above is the problem - then, In my experience, freeze can be caused by a hardware conflict (often graphics related), but from your description it sounds like you haven't added anything new in that respect. Try shutting down hardware acceleration and see if that helps the problem . . . if it does, it narrows down the field a tad, indicating that something is wrong with your graphics system. To shut down Hardware Acceleration in Windows XP:

Right click anyware on desktop
Select properties
Click settings tab
Click advanced
Click troubleshoot tab
Move hardware acceleration tab to none (To the left)
Click OK
Restart your computer

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One thing that you can try that's pretty simple is to boot into BIOS and find and select the "Load Failsafe Defaults" option. It's possible that an incorrect BIOS setting is causing the conflict.

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Overheating can also cause this to occur - but again, you seem to have eliminated this as a possible cause. I am not familier with Hot CPU Tester Pro - does it display your actual CPU temps? And are those temps within the range for your particular CPU? Might be a good idea to check and make sure your CPU heat-sink is properly seated.

*While you are inside the case, make sure all the other components (RAM, Graphics card, other PCI cards) are also properly seated. As always when mucking about inside a computer, make sure it is turned off AND unplugged from the wall jack. Before touching anything inside the case, make sure you discharge any static electricity your body may be holding by touching the computer's frame somewhere.

Download and install the program Everest here at MG - it will show the temps of your CPU and other components if they are equipped with a sensor. Check the displayed temps against the design limits of the particular piece of hardware.


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Software conflicts can also cause this - have you recently updated a driver for a particular piece of hardware? If so, this may help you trace down the problem. Or, I've been told that updating a driver for one piece of hardware can screw up the operation of another piece of hardware. Have you made sure you have the latest drivers for your sound, graphics, and motherboard? Also, individual programs can be incompatable with other programs on the same PC, causing many weird things to occur as they interact.


I hope you find something in this littany of some use!

 

hi i use this program TuneUp Utilities 2006 it has saved me 100,000 head akes and fixed many problem from reg file and other stuff it is worth every cent i have not brought the udate to TuneUp Utilities 2007 but will soon as i have a few spear bucks but will stick to TuneUp Utilities 2006 for the moment.

To read more about this program go here : http://www.tune-up.com/2007 version also you can download a 15 day tril to see if it fixers your problem i first brought the 2004 version many years ago and have stuck with it ever since.

Hope this helps

 

That Tuneup thing helped get rid of some registry issues, and I tried turning the hardware acceleration off, but my computer is still freezing.

What exactly would resetting the BIOS do? Would this change anything in particular that I would notice (other than maybe the computer not freezing, of course)?


I have also noticed that my computer freezes a lot more often when I'm using youtube, flash, or java applets in IE or Firefox.

Could it be that one of my sticks of RAM might be bad? I'm unsure of the symptoms of bad RAM.

 

Alright, I did just about everything about couldn't get it it to work, so I started taking my computer apart.

I cleaned it a bit, and took out a stick of RAM I got a while ago, and it seems to have solved the problem. It never acted up before, so who knows what happened, but apparently that is the dealio.


Thank you all for your help!