computer locking up, help!

I didn't even know if this is the correct category to post this in, or even the right forum for that matter.

My computer has been locking up randomly lately. Does anyone know what might cause this? My friend says its the power source.

 

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Many things can bring about a "lockup". Can you explain a little more about how and when this occurs?

 

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could be your harddisk failling, power source failer usual give a instan reboot not freezing

 

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I'll be randomly doing something, homework, etc., and it'll "freeze". I have to restart the computer after this.
It doesn't seem to have much pattern, sometimes it occurs within minutes after restarting but in some cases it will go days.

 

Not much info to go on - your friend's suggestion sounds apt. Find a place with a 30-day return policy and get a new power supply. If that doesn't fix it, return the power supply and look harder at the motherboard and RAM.

 

I seriously doubt it is the power supply. You could have a virus. Try running an antivirus program. Then run "adAware" and "SpyBot Search and Destroy." If this doesn't work, you might as well try running defrag (might even get some more drive space). Does it still freeze up if you boot in safe mode? We need more information.

 

How old is the computer? I dunno much about the inner workings of a computer, but I think an old computer will start turning into shit.

Take yer computer to Staples (if ya have one in yer city) or any other computer place and have them check it. Ya might hafta buy a new computer.

 

Don't take it back to the store yet! There is still hope. If you can boot in safe mode without problems, it is possible you have a driver problem or conflict.

Since I have not much to go on, try this:
open the control panel/system and then the device manager tab. Are there any exclamation points on the left side?

If your friend said it could be the power supply, maybe he referred to the software interface of the power system. Try turning off ACPI support (You might have to do this through the BIOS setup).

 

most likely
infected or software conflict
highly unlikely
hardware problem

i suggest you take it back to the store you bought it from and ask them
to fix it for you

 

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The one I've currently worked out is this:
Sometimes computer games like FPS ones use alot of Conventional Memory (Thats the harddrive space assigned as a Swapfile .swp), this means alot of data is written backwards and forwards between the RAM and harddrive, and occasionally hardware glitches can cause a crash in the game, perhaps even the game doesn't exit properly when you leave etc

Eventually with all the crashing on the system it generates "Bad Blocks" on your harddisk that can't be written to, or error when they are written to causing a lockup.
So the fix there is to actually run a Scandisk with all the tickboxes ticked to attempt to fix the disk. It can fix some (if not all) of the problems.

Other reasons for a system to lockup could be down to you MAXing out the Display adapter, you might have it running Full DirectX/OpenGL rather than being more "Performance". This means it will be trying to use the graphics card to it's fullest and potentially having problems doing so with it's drivers.

You can either fix that problem by updating to the latest drivers for your card (which can sometimes cause even more problems) or you could adjust your Performance settings for the card, so your graphics might not be as sharp as they were but your lockups would be less.

Other causes for lockups can be Bad RAM. This either means your RAM might be old and worn, or simply your RAM type might not be the best for your CPU specs.
(i.e. my old P3 850Mhz used to have PC100 DRAM which errored constantly, in fact so bad thats how I got the computer in the firstplace, I fixed it to work by replacing the RAM with PC133 DRAM which the board could take and it would properly, because there was no confliction in the speed of the RAM and BUS)

Another cause can be Hardware conflictions, like sharing an IRQ between the modem and a device on the system. I found this out once when I was hanging everytime I connected to the internet.

You might even want to check your CMOS settings, anything altered within your CMOS could potentially cause conflict. (For instance most of the AGP Cards now adays do most of the work on the card and therefore don't need "Shadowroming", where some of the cards processes are loaded to memory.)

Lastly and more importantly, make sure you cleanup your "Daemons". (Thats the programs that startup and run "with" windows running) If you look on your taskbar to the icons next to your clock and theres more than about 4 of them, then you have alot of programs that are running in the background that could cause problems. You should try exiting some of the ones you don't need or even stopping them from running in the future if they aren't needed, as it gives the resources back to the system.
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OK. All the things you guys told me makes sense. However, whenever i load windows, I ctrl-alt-delete -> processes -> and exit all the ones i can to maximize performance. I just recently noticed the box that comes up when i do this says "This can cause system instability." Could this be the cause of my lockups?

Adam J.

 

i have a similar problem with my computer except i built it 6 months ago and have only ever had one virus which was immediately dealt with

 

Define "lock up" - are you able to get keyboard input at all? If you hold down a key for 30 seconds, do you get beeping?

 

Nope. I don't. I also have to shut my computer and turn it back on again.

 

Usually, those are hardware-y, although software can do it.

If a Windows reinstall with correct drivers doesn't cure it, run memory tests.

If that fails, look at power supply, cooling unit and motherboard.

 

Hi Adam,

you've more or less answered your own question. You should leave most of those processes alone. Most are very likely needed for Windows to continue properly, and a random lockup is a very likely result if you mess with them without knowing what's what: remember, how did those processes get started? By Windows, and they remain resident so whenever they are needed they do not have to be loaded from disk, or are necessary for other reasons.

There ARE a few processes you can disable, but I suggest you lookup the full name of the process in Google first. Most of the times you find exactly what it does, and whether you should mess with it. Most often you find you don't really want to do that.

Checking running processes IS a very good idea if you suspect a virus or something. It should show up there, too.

You should take a peek at the free software at sysinternals.com. Those utilities show a LOT more than Windows, and gives a very nice and useful peek under the hood. And you'd be surprised how many ways there are to autoload programs...

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aw3524 :
OK. All the things you guys told me makes sense. However, whenever i load windows, I ctrl-alt-delete -> processes -> and exit all the ones i can to maximize performance. I just recently noticed the box that comes up when i do this says "This can cause system instability." Could this be the cause of my lockups?

Adam J.
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no it couldnt

 

you need to tell us more about your computer: hardware specs, OS, any service packs, recent installations..

 

Hard lock ups are usually caused by overheating. But if you are manually shutting down processes, you've most likley been causing your own problem.

To trim down Windows, check out the guide at http://www.blackviper.com/ . You can shut off unnecessary services without compromising stability by following his guides.

 

You've chosen a very fitting name, there....

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