Random Freeze/lock Up Win XP

Lemmy · 8 May 2006 at 01:07

Howdy All

For some unknown reason my my XP install keeps randomly locking up, the screen freezes and i cant move the mouse or ctrl alt del. Only a restart seems to sort the problem although sometimes it requires me to restart several times as it locks up on the xp boot screen.

I have added no new hardware and did a clean install about 3-4 weeks ago. Iv had this setup working fine for over year and only in the last week after the reinstall has it been funny.

Hopefully someone can help me out cos i dont have a clue whats going on!

cheers... hardware as follows...

Asus AV8
athlon 64 3500
1gb Kingston pc3200
Radeon x800xt
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum
WinXP SP2 - fully up to date

zetec452 · 8 May 2006 at 08:37

try memtest and see if your ram is working correctly.

Lemmy · 8 May 2006 at 15:03

Iv run memtest for a couple of hours and have no errors... not sure what else could be causing this problem. :confused:

Pyrosoft · 8 May 2006 at 15:13

check the event viewer to see if there is anything happening in there just before the lockups.

Lemmy · 8 May 2006 at 18:09

The event viewer seems to point to faulty hardware. Also upon checking out the bsod errors its looks like an irq problem which is strange.

Having disabled my sound card the problem now seems to be fixed. Might be new soudncard time, i will reinstall it and see what happens.

cheers

hp7909 · 8 May 2006 at 18:13

Tried clearing the CMOS?

Pyrosoft · 8 May 2006 at 18:23

Lemmy said:
The event viewer seems to point to faulty hardware. Also upon checking out the bsod errors its looks like an irq problem which is strange.

Having disabled my sound card the problem now seems to be fixed. Might be new soudncard time, i will reinstall it and see what happens.

cheers

try pyrsically removing it, cleaning the contacts and putting it back in again?

Lemmy · 12 May 2006 at 13:19

Hmm...

The problem seemed to have been fixed for a few days but it has now returned, it seems it probably wasnt the soundcard. The following info from the event viewer surely points to a gfx card issue ?

Error

Source: ati2mtag
Event ID: 52225

CPLIB :: Open Session - Failed to load the library

Opening the start menu now seems to trigger an immediate freeze/lockup of the system, the start begins to open but before it fully fades in it causes the crash. Hope someon can help

ns400r · 12 May 2006 at 13:34

Well ati2mtag is the video card so start by removing all the crapola that comes with ATI cards and install the latest drivers.

Lemmy · 12 May 2006 at 13:37

Forgot to mention, I have done that and am using the latest drivers.. CAT 6.4's. I might try a few older drivers see if the problem still crops up. The problem was still there with the 6.3's.

Lemmy · 14 May 2006 at 14:31

After trying several things the problem seems to persist. I have jsut done a clean install of XP and after a few minutes the computer decided to reboot.

Event viewer reports this...

Source: System Error

Catagory: (102)

Event ID: 1003

Error code 0000009c, parameter1 00000004, parameter2 80545ff0, parameter3 b2000010, parameter4 00010c0f.

I have no idea what this means.. could it be some kind of hardware fault ? I have installed no drivers or software. The freezing also seems to happen when i open the start menu, however it does happen randomly as well even if i havnt used the start menu.

There seems to be some text when i initially boot up that wasnt there before however its only there for a second whilst the settings are detected and then windows loads. Is there anyway to pause this boot screen as it may give a clue as to whats going on?

Hlebio · 14 May 2006 at 20:00

Have you overclocked anything? If so, go back to stock and see if the problem disappears.

It's almost certainly a hardware problem...

Is that 1gb of memory 2 sticks of 512 or single? If it's two sticks try each one individually, obviously if one crashes and the other doesn't you've found the guilty piece of hardware. If it's a single stick would it be possible to borrow some RAM from a friend to try in your PC?

Lemmy · 15 May 2006 at 01:33

Thanks for the suggestions... i read somewhere that Marvell network drivers have been known to cause this issue for some people, i uninstalled my network card and the problem seemed to have gone anway (windows ran fine for around 5 hours and didnt crash at points it previously was prone to). I have just reinstalled the network drivers and so far everything seems fine. If it still gives me problems i will no doubt post again.

Its so odd that this has happened on this system that i have been using without error for so long. Thanks for your help.. hoopefully i wont need it again