Win XP help, random freezes (+ tweeking tips)

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As the subject says, I've been having random mouse freezes in WinXP, I've been keeping a carefull eye on the task list but can't see any thing strange...

does any one have any ideas how to solve this problem?

It's a pain, as the audio stops as well, the freezes last for about a second or so. As I used this machine for producing music, and jitters in the audio stream are bad (tm).

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Ok, This happened before I had installed anything on it. Then I put Logic Audio, Sound Forge, Reason 2.0 on it. Then I installed all the service pack, updates etc from M$.

And still it happens. I have just noticed that often the freezes happen to coincide with HD access, I'm wondering if I had some odd settings somewhere.

I have made sure the drive does not spin down (power saving), and I can't find any other cache options. I have installed the latest IDE drivers from the chipset vendors website... still the machine stutters :-(

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restore2003 wrote:
Have you installed new hardware lately? Updated drivers etc ?

Btw do u have AMD or P4?

The machine is a brand new P4 3.06Ghz with 512Meg.

It does the job really well, able to handle Logic and Reason at the same time with hardly any CPU usage. But the stutters are really annoying.

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restore2003 wrote:
Im also a musician :-)  Only use synths and drummachines though.....

 It sounds to be a soundcard problem, what card u have? Is it only happening when playing music?

No I don't think it's a Sound card problem (I'm only using the internal SiS 7012 at the moment, Echo Indigo IO here I come :-) ), as the lockups seem to happen when when the hard drive is being accessed. I've increased the disk buffers in Logic to see if that helps, it doesnt :-(

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Tomas wrote:

It's a pain, as the audio stops as well, the freezes last for about a second or so. As I used this machine for producing music, and jitters in the audio stream are bad (tm).

Freezes for one sec then starts working normally again? then freezes again after some random time?
Or does it freeze completly so that reset is only escape?

I had a very similar problem like this... Turned out to be the drivers for the promise raid/ultra cards... the same thing happened on both of them... i think the ide bus would reset, which caused the whole system to freeze up completly for a sec and then work normally for another min or so before it happened again..

Installing the older version of the drivers completly solved the problem.

Spot on, freezes for a second and then runs fine. I wouldn't really care that much, but the audio stops for that second too!

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Ilwrath wrote:

I had a very similar problem like this... Turned out to be the drivers for the promise raid/ultra cards... the same thing happened on both of them... i think the ide bus would reset, which caused the whole system to freeze up completly for a sec and then work normally for another min or so before it happened again..

Spot on, freezes for a second and then runs fine. I wouldn't really care that much, but the audio stops for that second too!

My guess (and this is coming from someone who has a couple NT4 certs) is chipset drivers.  

You didn't mention what chipset your mobo is, but certainly VIA *MUST* be running very recent 4-in-1 drivers.  Most every person who says VIA chipsets are crap hasn't updated their drivers properly.  They run like absolute dogsh!t until you download the latest versions.  The driver CD that ships in the box is worthless, and the built-in Windows drivers cause all sorts of problems.  

Intel chipsets aren't as fussy, but they SHOULD also be running Intel's drivers for your chipset, anyhow.  I just trust Intel to know their own chipsets better than MS would.

Not sure how SiS is on drivers, because I've always avoided them.

Yeah, I'm on a SiS 645DX chipset. I've updated to the latest drivers.. all I can think now is that my HD is crap :-/ but I've never had freezing due to a crap HD before.

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Also, in the System properties, there's a little check box to "Disable random lockups". Make sure it's checked.

Ahhh that's the cause!!! :-P Hahahahahahahahahahah


I forgot to say that I'm running on a laptop, and the Harddrive is running in UDMA5 (at least windows reports it as such, the DVD-R/RW is running at UDMA4).

I can find only one BIOS update for my Machine, but it is from a different company to the brand of my Laptop (Though I know they all use the same internals), so I don't want to do any BIOS flashing at all (since I have no comeback when I fcuk it up).


Side note: When the Task manager is open sometimes the little CPU usage gauge doesn't appear in the systray, that really annoys me, sometimes it works, sometimes not...

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Ok, after a lot of testing and running performance monitors, I have found that when the Random lockups happen, I get a spike of 100% CPU usage, but it is instantanious so I can't see which is the offending task :-(

I have shut down all the services I can  and still this happens!!!  :-x

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mikeymike wrote:

Ok, after a lot of testing and running performance monitors, I have found that when the Random lockups happen, I get a spike of 100% CPU usage, but it is instantanious so I can't see which is the offending task
I have shut down all the services I can and still this happens!!!

Not surprising on both counts.  Have you updated all drivers?  What's the motherboard model, have you read up about it?

I appreciate the help I am getting by the way. You guys are great :-)

Anyway, I punched what I know into Google, and that said to check for CPU overheating.

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Unit21 wrote:
Just a thought...

Have you any extra memory inside this laptop?!
I had the same problem in a laptop once and it was caused by a dodgy memory-chip.
Try removing any extra memory and see what happens...

As it happens, I do have extra Memory, but I can't remove it as that would require taking off the warentee sticker :-(

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mikeymike wrote:

Anyway, I punched what I know into Google, and that said to check for CPU overheating.

Well the P4 3GHz does spout out a LOT of heat, but the usual symptoms of over-heating CPUs are as follows (in order of likeliness):

 - complete hardware lockups (up to and inc. the point of having to pull the power out the back)
 - app crashes
 - spontaneous reboots (sometimes rebooting properly or not)
 - computer doesn't boot full stop :-)

- edit - a 3GHz laptop?  Are you nuts? :-)

I still strongly suspect drivers though.

Well, a Sysinfo shows that it's not overheating. :-D -Edit- my CPU is not the Mobile one it is the desktop one.


The Machine just freezes for about a second and then goes on it's merry way (though the lockups often happen in a cluster, 5 happening in the sace of a minute).
XP has always done this on this Laptop.
I'm going to try Safe Mode tonight and give Linux a quick go and see how they perform.

I personally think it is a dodgy IDE driver. Even though I have the latest driver. PIO mode will be tested (and the other UDMA modes).

3Ghz, I hear you cry! Well I want to be able to run some seriously cycle hungry music programs (soft synths and effects)  all at the same time, when I'm on stage.
 Memo: look for some ASIO drivers...

My Mobo number is the common N251S6 (if anyone has any experinece with these I would be very greatful).

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mikeymike wrote:

my CPU is not the Mobile one it is the desktop one.

In a laptop?!?  :-o  That would probably end up melting components, the keyboard mould particularly!

It's got a great fan! pumps out heat like some kind of industrial space heater.  :-D

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pjhutch wrote:
Do you have the Indexing Service enabled? This service will index all the files on your HD for fast searches and can slow down HD access.
Disable it via Services.msc or uninstall via Add/Remove Windows Components.

Yup, disabled that as soon as I got it out of the box :-)

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15" display and it's about: 32cm  by 28cm and about 3cm high.

It weighs about 4Kg (though I'm sure it's more, and its carry bag is about a Kilo too)... I really am weak :-P

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mikeymike wrote:
How did you even get a retail desktop P4 CPU into a laptop?

It came like that... I know it's not a mobile verison because I can check the CPU_ID.

It also has a rather nice 64Meg Mobile Radion 9000, wich is a massive leap over the old TNT2 in my desktop. Anyway... I'll stop before I go even more off topic... hmmm, I actually have it sat next to me in the office, but my Boss wasn't really very keen on me using it at work :-( I tried to tell him I was sorting out a problem but I had to conceed that it had nothing to do with my work :lol: