Win XP help, random freezes (+ tweeking tips)

[Glaucus]

It's hard to say off hand without knowing all about your hardware/software configuration. If you really think it's the hard drive access, make sure your cable is good, I've had weird things happen with faulty 80pin IDE cables. What mobo & cpu are you using?

First thing I would do is check your BIOS settings. Make sure you have the IDE set to UDMA and then in WinXP verify that you are indeed running at UDMA (if you have an 80pin IDE cable you should be running at UDMA 5 or 6 (ATA100/ATA133) on your hard drive).

Also, some BIOSes have options to "Load fail safe settings" or "Load High Performance settings", try loading the fail safe settings as the high perf. settings tend to speed up chip timings which can cause strange errors.

Of course you can also check to see if there are newer BIOS updates, that too could fix things.

On the WinXP side of things, updating drivers is of course a given, that should be done. Things to update are the chipset drivers, video drivers, sound drivers, network card drivers, USB drivers (if they are not part of the chipset drivers), video capture drivers, etc. And you should do some research on all those drivers as well because sometimes the latest versions of the drivers have known problems. For example, when I installed the latest video capture drivers for my GeForce2 Deluxe card (v1.23) the video capture feature worked fine except that half the image was blank. To make it work properly I had to track down version 1.06. Not sure why the newer versions of the driver don't work, but it's a common problem and I was able to find many posts on forums about it. Hopefully you won't need to go through any of that ####.

A good way to track down weird hardware problems is by disabling (or removing) certain hardware components. Tracking it down to a particular hardware component will make your life that much easier. Perhaps disable your sound card and see if that still causes your lockups. If not, then disable your network card. Disable all your USB, COM1/2 and parallel ports, video capture, CD-ROMs and even swap around IDE cables.

Then start disabling software. MSConfig can be a useful diagnostic tool. Shut everything off and then see if it still happens. If not, then turn things on one at a time until the problem acts up.

Also run msinfo32 (System Information) and take note of Hardware Resources->Conflict/Sharing. Make sure there are no conflicts and take note of what devices share with which other devices. Sometimes devices don't share well with particular devices. If those devices are on the PCI bus, you can usually move them around from slot to slot and they will be given different IRQs. Check your mobo manual to see which slot is associated with which IRQ or INT.

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

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

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...

Not sure this is related, but, I had weird things happen with my system tray as well. Icons would not show up at times, and would other times. After much digging around on the net I discovered that the UPnP service can cause this weird little qwerk. Since I didn't need that service I disabled it and since then all my icons in the system tray have been where they should be. Strange but true!

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

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).

Does your BIOS also report UDMA5 or does it list UDMA6? If it says 6, then the reason your WinXP doesn't also run at UDMA6 is because WinXP didn't support ATA133 until SP1. You will need to re-install your IDE/chipset drivers after you install SP1 to bump it up to UDMA6. Here's an explanation as to how it affects VIA chipsets, it's possible SiS are the same: Ultra DMA Mode 6 Devices Are Not Enabled on VIA Motherboards After You Install Windows XP SP1

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Hmm...  try PIO just for fun.

Somehow I doubt your CPU is overheating, but it's possible some other components are. Video overheating usually causes weird things to appear on your screen and the occasional lockup/crash. Other things could affect the system in a similarly unpredictable manner. Heat is always a concern.

So what's the lockup pattern like? Does it happen within minutes of booting up or only after it's been on for some time. Does it lockup more when being driven hard (ie, playing games) or even at idle? Is there any particular app that's always running when it locksup?

I suppose with a laptop it's not so easy to diagnose and fix hardware problems when you can't remove or disable the actual parts (although you can still use the Device Manager to disable some devices and the BIOS for others). You may end up having to return it to be serviced so that you don't void your warranty. That kinda sucks, but that's one of the many pitfalls of owning a laptop. Good luck!

Btw, what's the make and model number of your laptop? Just curious.

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Well, I'd love to blame the P4, but there's just so many of those out there I don't think such a problem would be obscure. It's probably a combination of hardware that doesn't work well together. What else does your machine have in common with your fathers? Same mobo perhaps? Are you overclocking or doing any other performance mods? How about your BIOS? Has it been updated? Did you reset it after it was updated?

Luckily, I don't have such problems with my Athlon system, although every now and then my Logitech TrackMan Marble+ stops working and I need to unplug/plug it to make it work again. I think it's the trackman itself though, as I've tried my sister's trackman on my machine and it works fine! Is it just me or is Logitech quality control down the toilet? My Logitech Wingman Extreme 3D also has issues.  :-(

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Well, I did a search for you and Paul_Gadd's suggestion seems to be the only real solution out there. Me thinks you may have a hard time tracking this one down. :-(

Just a shot in the dark here, but what anti-virus software are you running?

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Another possability is bad sectors or scratches on the hard drive. run a checkdisk on your c: drive with all advanced options and see the results.

Actually, come to think of it, make sure the recovery console is installed (Installing Windows XP Recovery Console) and from the recovery console run chkdsk. I find it does a much better job of fixing things from the recovery console. Worth a shot, especially if you have weird things going on. Worked for me once.

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

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!

Yeah, I agree, the desktop version would probably melt everything, plus it would draw so much power your battery life would be measured in minutes not hours. I suspect you mean you have the Pentium 4 M, as opposed to the Centrino Pentium M.

  - Mike

[Glaucus]

Hmmm...  Most curious. Did you mention the make/model of your laptop? I would like to just look up the official specs on a web site.

Also, perhaps go into msinfo32 and select File->Export, and then post the resulting file so we can have a good look at your system. Edit it out anything you don't want us to see.  :-)

  - Mike