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View Full Version : Re: OT I know - Question for you computer/IT folks


Super Slinky
July 3rd 03, 06:28 AM
Michael Paul said...

> I'm having a major issue with my system right now that just started a few
> days ago. Basically, my computer (P IV, XP, 512 MB RAM) crashed a few times
> for no apparent reason. I simply restarted and went about my business.
> However, this AM, I was about to archive some data files onto CD when the
> proverbial sh!t seemed to hit the fan.
>
> I put in a new CD-RW a few weeks ago and everything worked fine with it. I
> installed some SW from it, and burned several with my own information. This
> morning, I put in a blank CD and closed the tray when WHAM! Crash. I let
> the system restore itself and tried again. Same result. Thinking maybe
> something was wrong with the CD, I took a CD that I previously had burned
> with the burner and the same thing happened again. The weird thing is that
> if I open and then close the CD tray without putting a CD in then nothing
> bad happens.
>
> This time though, during the re-boot process, the system would get partway
> through the scandisk and it would crash again thus creating a seemingly
> endless cycle of boot - start recovery - crash - reboot - start recovery -
> crash - etc. etc. etc.
>
> So, what coudl be the cause?
>
> I don't think it's the OS (although with Microsoft anything is possible).
> My initial though is that maybe something is jacked with a power managment
> circuit on either the motherboard or CPU. I only was thinking this because
> the crash seems to always occur when multiple power consumption tasks are in
> process.
>
> Any ideas? Some guidance would be nice before I head down to Fry's and blow
> money I would rather spend on my bike on new hardware.
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael

You aren't over clocking are you? I guess not or you would have thought
of that. Any chance the BIOS memory timings got monkeyed with? Is the
CPU fan working? Any chance there are other fans not working that once
were, like on the power supply? It really sounds like hardware or
hardware configuration. In my experience catastrophic hardware failure
of the power supply, hard drive, memory modules, CPU, or motherboard is
very rare, but maybe I have been lucky. If there is a failure, it could
be any one of those things. My guess would be hard drive, power supply
or memory in that order. One thing you can try is to remove the memory,
wipe off the contacts with alcohol and reinstall them. I have had bad
sectors appear on a hard drive before that caused mysterious problems,
but once I used a utility to fix them, it worked great from then on.
Find out the make and model of your hard drive and go to the
manufacturer's web site and download a diagnostic/repair program. It is
worth a try.

aPilgrimandaStranger
July 3rd 03, 07:13 AM
If you have a multimeter, i would check the power supply out. It could be a
huge array of stuff including mobo/processor/ram etc but i would definitely
rule out the PSU first.

Peace,
Pilgrim

"Michael Paul" > wrote in message
.. .
>
> "Pete" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > "Michael Paul" > wrote
> >
> > >
> > > Any ideas? Some guidance would be nice before I head down to Fry's
and
> > blow
> > > money I would rather spend on my bike on new hardware.
> > >
> >
> > Sounds like the new CD drive is toast.
> > Remove the offending CD drive and put in another one. If it still fails,
> > then its not the drive. If it doesn't fail...get a new one. Still under
> > warranty, right?
> >
> > HTH
> >
> > Pete
> >
> >
> Tried that. still had the old one and still had problems.
>
> In the past few hours I'm getting the phantom reboots without doing
anything
> so now I'm thoroughly confused.
>
> Michael
>
>

Stephen Baker
July 3rd 03, 12:17 PM
M Paul says:

>I'm having a major issue with my system right now

<snip tales of woe>

Before doing ANYTHING else, unplug or remove from the machine anything that is
not vital to it's start-up. As in :
Sound card
All disk drives/CD drives except the boot drive
Modem (if you use one)
Network card..

You get the piccie?
If a minimal set-up will boot, even though it throws "not found" errors around,
then you can start plugging stuff back in - one piece at a time only - until
the thing fries again. When it fries, then the last thing re-connected is the
culprit.

If that doesn't work, then and only then should you start tinkering with
multimeters and software.

My 0.02

Steve hasn't been a puter engineer since 1976, but has kept his own working
pretty well since then.

J'm Sm'th
July 3rd 03, 03:34 PM
Stephen Baker wrote:
>
> M Paul says:
>
> >I'm having a major issue with my system right now
>
> <snip tales of woe>
>
> Before doing ANYTHING else, unplug or remove from the machine anything that is
> not vital to it's start-up. As in :
> Sound card
> All disk drives/CD drives except the boot drive
> Modem (if you use one)
> Network card..
>
> You get the piccie?
> If a minimal set-up will boot, even though it throws "not found" errors around,
> then you can start plugging stuff back in - one piece at a time only - until
> the thing fries again. When it fries, then the last thing re-connected is the
> culprit.
>
> If that doesn't work, then and only then should you start tinkering with
> multimeters and software.
>
> My 0.02
>
> Steve hasn't been a puter engineer since 1976, but has kept his own working
> pretty well since then.

This is excellent advice. The *first* thing I would do, however, is to ensure
that the heat sink is properly in place, the dust bunnies are gone, that that
all the cooling fans are working properly. Then, if that seems to check out,
proceed as above.

--
J'm


To Reply Direct, Remove Clothes.
....-.-

Pete
July 3rd 03, 05:33 PM
"Michael Paul" > wrote

>
> Any ideas? Some guidance would be nice before I head down to Fry's and
blow
> money I would rather spend on my bike on new hardware.
>
> Thanks

You ARE virus/trojan free, right?

Pete

MattB
July 3rd 03, 06:07 PM
"J'm Sm'th" > wrote in message
...
> Stephen Baker wrote:
> >
> > M Paul says:
> >
> > >I'm having a major issue with my system right now
> >
> > <snip tales of woe>
> >
> > Before doing ANYTHING else, unplug or remove from the machine anything
that is
> > not vital to it's start-up. As in :
> > Sound card
> > All disk drives/CD drives except the boot drive
> > Modem (if you use one)
> > Network card..
> >
> > You get the piccie?
> > If a minimal set-up will boot, even though it throws "not found" errors
around,
> > then you can start plugging stuff back in - one piece at a time only -
until
> > the thing fries again. When it fries, then the last thing re-connected
is the
> > culprit.
> >
> > If that doesn't work, then and only then should you start tinkering with
> > multimeters and software.
> >
> > My 0.02
> >
> > Steve hasn't been a puter engineer since 1976, but has kept his own
working
> > pretty well since then.
>
> This is excellent advice. The *first* thing I would do, however, is to
ensure
> that the heat sink is properly in place, the dust bunnies are gone, that
that
> all the cooling fans are working properly. Then, if that seems to check
out,
> proceed as above.
>
> --
> J'm
>
>
> To Reply Direct, Remove Clothes.
> ...-.-

All good advise, but here's another possibility: Did you install new
software with the drive? I've seen older versions of Easy CD Creator kill a
Win2k system in the same way. So you could also try uninstalling any
software that came with the drive and see if that helps. Even better, if the
installer routine was flawed (not uncommon) you should use an XP restore
point to get back to how it was before the install. It could be as simple as
having a dll that was designed for a different OS loaded.

Matt

J'm Sm'th
July 3rd 03, 06:47 PM
Michael Paul wrote:
>
> I'm having a major issue with my system right now that just started a few
> days ago. Basically, my computer (P IV, XP, 512 MB RAM) crashed a few times
> for no apparent reason. I simply restarted and went about my business.
> However, this AM, I was about to archive some data files onto CD when the
> proverbial sh!t seemed to hit the fan.
>
> I put in a new CD-RW a few weeks ago and everything worked fine with it. I
> installed some SW from it, and burned several with my own information. This
> morning, I put in a blank CD and closed the tray when WHAM! Crash. I let
> the system restore itself and tried again. Same result. Thinking maybe
> something was wrong with the CD, I took a CD that I previously had burned
> with the burner and the same thing happened again. The weird thing is that
> if I open and then close the CD tray without putting a CD in then nothing
> bad happens.
>
> This time though, during the re-boot process, the system would get partway
> through the scandisk and it would crash again thus creating a seemingly
> endless cycle of boot - start recovery - crash - reboot - start recovery -
> crash - etc. etc. etc.
>
> So, what coudl be the cause?
>
> I don't think it's the OS (although with Microsoft anything is possible).
> My initial though is that maybe something is jacked with a power managment
> circuit on either the motherboard or CPU. I only was thinking this because
> the crash seems to always occur when multiple power consumption tasks are in
> process.
>
> Any ideas? Some guidance would be nice before I head down to Fry's and blow
> money I would rather spend on my bike on new hardware.
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael

Oh yeah, one more obligatory thing: wipe the drive clean and install FreeBSD.

--
J'm


To Reply Direct, Remove Clothes.
....-.-

2trax
July 4th 03, 04:58 AM
On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 01:50:37 +0000, Michael Paul wrote:

<snip>
> This time though, during the re-boot process, the system would get
> partway through the scandisk and it would crash again thus creating a
> seemingly endless cycle of boot - start recovery - crash - reboot -
> start recovery - crash - etc. etc. etc.
>
> So, what coudl be the cause?
>
>
>
Seems like you have already have lots of good advice from the ng...

To me, it sounds like a drive failure. If you have recently installed a
new CDRW, check that all the connections from your hard drives and other
ide devices to the ide controller are firmly in place (the wide ribbon
cables). Sometimes if one of these connections is loose, it can cause
similar symptoms. Also check the power cables are all well connected.

If everything is firmly connected and the problem persists, then try
unplugging everything except the hd that XP is installed on. Try booting
in safe mode and running a thorough scandisk check on it... if that fails,
the drive is probably toast. If it succeeds, then your hd is probably OK
and it's one of the other devices that is the problem. Both the BIOS and
XP are likely to complain about missing devices during start-up; just tell
them to shut up and get on with it.

If your primary hd is OK, reconnect the remaining drives, one by one. Each
time you connect one, try booting / using the system for a while. When it
starts crashing again, you will know which device it is that is causing
the errors.

Since you have been inside the case recently, it's also worth checking
that you have not knocked any of the pci cards or memory out of place by
accident. Rare but possible.

Good luck,

Sam.

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