Random Freezing :/ (please help)

STaN

ok..

for the past 4 days ive been battling with my machiene to get it to stop freezing on me when im in the middle of running programs.

Now the thing is that i this pc is 2nd hand and came with a utility to overclock the fsb and this in turn increases the speed of the processor. I tried it out and increased the fsb to 104mhz, increasing the cpu to 780mhz (originally 750mhz 7.5x100) but it was unstable so i reset the setting after 2-3 boot ups. Now after this windows and indeed dos has been randomly freezing on me.

So i started about a process of elimination seeing what might be wrong. First off the case was a bit warm, so i installed a heatsink capable of handling up to 1.4ghz so cpu heat wasnt a problem, i also installed an exhaust fan beside the gpu to remove any heat from there and also a hard disk coooling fan underneath it.

So anyway the system ran for 6 hours straight without freezing and then FROZE on me when i right clicked to copy something so i said to myself that the heat couldnt have been the problem.

After that is started a proccess of elimination of the hardware to see was anything b0rked. I replaced the gfx card with a pci spare 1 i had and that made no difference. I removed all cdroms and cd-rs, same result, i removed the floppy and moved the cdrom power calbes to the hdd's to see if that changed anything. I also took out 1 of the 128mb dimms and alternated them, system froze while either 1 was in, and now im quite frustrated.

Im left with the pci cards... isdn ta, sound card or the processor or that BOTH dimms are damaged or the psu is not sufficient (im not sure of the wattage).

So what im running with atm is

duron 750mhz
2 x 128mb sdram
2 x hdd's (6gb - primary with fan, 10gb secondary)
1 isdn ta
1 pci sound card
1 geforce1 32mb
win98se

the rest is still out of the case, and just there the system froze running cs.

So any idea's? Could it be motherboard drivers? Any suggestions are welcome.

Should i install win2k on the 2ndary hdd and see if it runs stably? or should i start replacing the ram? please help

STaN

oh and sandra (no not my sexy computer assistant - The "System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) reads my mobo temperature at a constant 24.1oC

Stephen

Try either reinstalling Win98 or going for Win2k (that's what i'd do. Win9x is old hat in this day and age)

Ruaidhri

i *hate* when ppl try blame either the Hardware setup or blame are searching for the mythical driver that will solve all their problems

here is what you do:

1)backup everything
2)run a virus scan
3)get a list of your hardware and get the current windows 2000 drivers
4)format your drives
5)get win2k and install it
6)restore all essential software



and never overclock again.

STaN

Originally posted by Ruaidhri
i *hate* when ppl try blame either the Hardware setup or blame are searching for the mythical driver that will solve all their problems

2)run a virus scan

Well tbh because the hardware was in a sence pushed over its limits i assumed a hardware problem.

Ill run the scan, system has a tendancy to freeze during them though :rolleyes:

STaN

in an attempt to rule out all software problems.. i ran the GoldMemory program featured in the over clocking post.

I ran this program independant of all windows, and dos himem files so it was independant of any software i had installed.

The interesting was that the program froze! I read through the manual

If GoldMemory program freezes just after start or after some time, it can be caused by wrong motherboard or by wrong chipset/cache. Found errors (or something) else cannot be caused by incompatibility GoldMemory program and tested hardware, because GoldMemory uses error detection algorithms independent on hardware. Problem can only be, when GoldMemory detects incorrect memory size (incompatibility of BIOS) and then wants to write or to read non-existing memory addresses.

This seems to make sence and would explain whats been going on with the random freezing.

I ran the test again in quick mode (runs a 32bit cycle only, not the 8bit and 16bit) and the ram checked out fine and there were no hardware errors.

So this leaves the bios causing errors... what do i do? Or have i misread the manual and that the above is only 1 possible problem?

http://www.goldmemory.cz/ is the address of this utility

STaN

My mobo specs

STaN

right im about to try a mobo bios flash, if u dont hear from me for a few weeks its obviously gone very wrong :cool:

flamegrill

Try the 2 sticks of ram on their own. Typically bad ram can cause serious stability problems. Also ask someone for a loan of some and see if thats fuct.