[Padan]

Hello ..

I'm a pretty hardcore player of Everquest2. Up until a few days ago, my system has run flawlessly with the game. A couple days ago it started to lockup during game play. The lockups seem random ( anywhere from 2 mins to 2 hours into playing ). I have updated all my drivers and cleaned out my case thoroughly. I originally thought I had a problem with my graphics card. But , today my system has locked up twice while just surfing the internet with no other applications open. I would not think that looking at my bank statements would be very stressful on the computer. So I was thinking possibly a power supply failure?

I guess my question is :

Is this sort of issue more commonly associated with a hardware failure? A power supply? or possibly my motherboard / processor?

Any ideas / advice / suggestions / thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much !

I'm sorry if i posted this in the wrong forum ... but I assumed I was looking at a hardware problem.

Padan.

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When you say "it locks up" is it still on but the screen is frozen? Or the computer shuts off?

Also, can you list your computer info?

• Click Start
• Right Click My Computer
• Select Properties
• Make sure the "General" Tab is forward

Tell me that info.
Also, is this a custom built computer or OEM? i.e. Dell

[Ferrari]

When you say "it locks up" is it still on but the screen is frozen? Or the computer shuts off?

Also, can you list your computer info?

• Click Start
• Right Click My Computer
• Select Properties
• Make sure the "General" Tab is forward

Tell me that info.
Also, is this a custom built computer or OEM? i.e. Dell

[Padan]

When you say "it locks up" is it still on but the screen is frozen? Or the computer shuts off?

Also, can you list your computer info?

• Click Start
• Right Click My Computer
• Select Properties
• Make sure the "General" Tab is forward

Tell me that info.
Also, is this a custom built computer or OEM? i.e. Dell

Thanks for the reply Ferrari ! Here is my computer info

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Service Pack 3
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3.0 GHz
3GB Ram DDR2
Gigabyte P35-DS3R Motherboard
Bios - Award Software International ( Version F5 )
nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3.

The computer locks up. The screen is still on and the music or sound starts repeating at whatever spot it locked up at. And this will just go on forever, only thing i can do is manually reboot. It won't recognize Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Custom built, probably 5 years ago at least. I had a local shop in town put it together for me.

[Ferrari]

I think bad RAM or bad hard drive would cause this. I suspect bad hard drive or at least bad sectors.

This involves opening the computer up. Try running the computer with only one stick of RAM in DIMM 1... it will either be the red or yellow slot closest to the cpu. Does this solve the issue? Any lock ups? If not, try a different stick of RAM. If this does solve the issue, add one stick of RAM each time until the computer locks up again, trial and error, see?

If that doesn't work. Try running chkdsk /r

• Click Start
• Click on Run...
• Type or copy and paste chkdsk /r
• Notice the space between the k and /
• Click OK
• You will be promted that it cannot run, and
  asked if you'd like it to run at startup, Enter
  Y for Yes
• Press Enter
• Restart Your Computer

Chkdsk will run, the percentage of completion will even appear to go backwards at times and this process make take several hours to complete. Once it has finished, look to see if it found any errors, then type EXIT and press Enter. Your computer will restart.

Problem solved? Any Errors found? Let me know how things go, we may need to test your hard drive.

Edited by Ferrari, 25 February 2010 - 01:16 AM.

[Padan]

I think bad RAM or bad hard drive would cause this. I suspect bad hard drive or at least bad sectors.

This involves opening the computer up. Try running the computer with only one stick of RAM in DIMM 1... it will either be the red or yellow slot closest to the cpu. Does this solve the issue? Any lock ups? If not, try a different stick of RAM. If this does solve the issue, add one stick of RAM each time until the computer locks up again, trial and error, see?

If that doesn't work. Try running chkdsk /r

• Click Start
• Click on Run...
• Type or copy and paste chkdsk /r
• Notice the space between the k and /
• Click OK
• You will be promted that it cannot run, and
  asked if you'd like it to run at startup, Enter
  Y for Yes
• Press Enter
• Restart Your Computer

Chkdsk will run, the percentage of completion will even appear to go backwards at times and this process make take several hours to complete. Once it has finished, look to see if it found any errors, then type EXIT and press Enter. Your computer will restart.

Problem solved? Any Errors found? Let me know how things go, we may need to test your hard drive.

Ok, so my computer has been on for over a day now with no lockups. I played eq2 this morning for about 2 hours. I decided to go ahead and run chkdsk. It took just about 3 hours, and when it was finished, it scrolled some information and rebooted before i could read it. It then brought up a screen that said Windows has finished checking the disk, then booted up to Windows as normal, so i am assuming there were no errors found?

[Padan]

Hmm, I also downloaded Everest and here are some temps that it's showing me.

Motherboard 22c
Aux 38c
GPU 52c
Seagate 30c


Not a lot of change with EQ2, Firefox and Everest all open.
Only change in temps is with my GPU and it jumps to about 55-56c.


is my graphics card in the OK range for temps?

Edited by Padan, 25 February 2010 - 07:03 PM.

[Ferrari]

is my graphics card in the OK range for temps?

Yes, those are within range, GPU's run really hot, that's normal.

After running chkdsk, see if the computer locks up anymore, report back if it does.

[Padan]

Yes, it has locked up on me 3 times today. Once during gameplay, and twice while just using Firefox.

[Ferrari]

I think the hard drive might be hanging. Try testing your hard drive with a bootable cd, similar to memtest. I made a video tutorial a while ago on how to do it, it's now the greatest, but it should get you by. Here it is...

Be sure to use the correct utility for your brand of hard drive. i.e. Western Digital, Seagate, etc. and run the extended test, not a quick test...

Memtest may be a good idea as well, if it finds even one error, that is a problem. Tutorial here... http://www.geekstogo...86-t246994.html

Edited by Ferrari, 25 February 2010 - 08:48 PM.

[Padan]

Thanks !

I got the bootable cd working just fine. I ran a quick test first to make sure it worked and it found no errors. In the process right now of running the extended test. After that I'll run memtest and get back to you with results.

[Padan]

Alright, after testing the hard drive with the bootable CD, the results were :

Test Results : Passed.
DST finished without errors.

It's late, and my son will have me up early. So, i'll run the memtest in the morning when I get up.

[Padan]

Ok, so this morning I ran memtest on each of my 4 sticks of RAM. I have 2 1GB sticks and 2 512MB sticks. I let each Test run once through Test #8 and there were no errors found on any of the sticks.

[Ferrari]

Padan, do you have another graphics card to put in there? Any el' cheapo will do. Even just a PCI card, your board doesn't have onboard video right? The point is to just see if we can stop the computer from locking up.

Also, did you ever try just running the computer with 1 stick of RAM like mentioned earlier? And then add RAM from there if the lockups don't continue. Sometimes the physical test is better than memtest.

If that doesn't work, we've tested the hardware about as best as we can really. I will be sending a message to a staff member here, see if he has any other ideas.

Let me know.

[rshaffer61]

Download WhoCrashed from the link in my signature below
This program checks for any drivers which may have been causing your computer to crash....

Click on the file you just downloaded and run it.
Put a tick in Accept then click on Next
Put a tick in the Don't create a start menu folder then click Next
Put a tick in Create a Desktop Icon then click on Install and make sure there is a tick in Launch Whocrashed before clicking Finish
Click Analyze
It will want to download the Debugger and install it Say Yes
WhoCrashed will create report but you have to scroll down to see it
Copy and paste it into your next reply

• Please download the Event Viewer Tool by Vino Rosso VEW and save it to your Desktop:
• Double-click VEW.exe
• Under 'Select log to query', select (as appropriate):
  
  • Application
  • System
• Under 'Select type to list', select (as appropriate):
  
  • Error
  • Information
  • Warning

Then use the 'Date of events' or 'Number of events' as follows:

Either:

• Click the radio button for 'Number of events'
  Type 3 in the 1 to 20 box (or any number from 1 to 20)
  Then click the Run button.
  Notepad will open with the output log.
  
  
• Click the radio button for 'Date of events'
  In the From: boxes type today's date (presuming the crash happened today) 13 07 2009
  In the To: boxes type today's date (presuming the crash happened today) 13 07 2009
  Then click the Run button.
  Notepad will open with the output log.

Please post the Output log in your next reply

[Padan]

Download WhoCrashed from the link in my signature below
This program checks for any drivers which may have been causing your computer to crash....

Click on the file you just downloaded and run it.
Put a tick in Accept then click on Next
Put a tick in the Don't create a start menu folder then click Next
Put a tick in Create a Desktop Icon then click on Install and make sure there is a tick in Launch Whocrashed before clicking Finish
Click Analyze
It will want to download the Debugger and install it Say Yes
WhoCrashed will create report but you have to scroll down to see it
Copy and paste it into your next reply

• Please download the Event Viewer Tool by Vino Rosso VEW and save it to your Desktop:
• Double-click VEW.exe
• Under 'Select log to query', select (as appropriate):
  
  • Application
  • System
• Under 'Select type to list', select (as appropriate):
  
  • Error
  • Information
  • Warning

Then use the 'Date of events' or 'Number of events' as follows:

Either:

• Click the radio button for 'Number of events'
  Type 3 in the 1 to 20 box (or any number from 1 to 20)
  Then click the Run button.
  Notepad will open with the output log.
  
  
• Click the radio button for 'Date of events'
  In the From: boxes type today's date (presuming the crash happened today) 13 07 2009
  In the To: boxes type today's date (presuming the crash happened today) 13 07 2009
  Then click the Run button.
  Notepad will open with the output log.

Please post the Output log in your next reply

WhoCrashed Report :

Analysis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crash dump directory: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.


No valid crash dumps have been found on your computer.



VEW Report by Date, Feb 25 2010 :

Note: All dates below are in the format dd/mm/yyyy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Application' Log - error Type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No 'Application' log error events found from 25/02/2010 to 25/02/2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Application' Log - information Type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No 'Application' log information events found from 25/02/2010 to 25/02/2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Application' Log - warning Type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No 'Application' log warning events found from 25/02/2010 to 25/02/2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'System' Log - error Type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No 'System' log error events found from 25/02/2010 to 25/02/2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'System' Log - information Type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No 'System' log information events found from 25/02/2010 to 25/02/2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'System' Log - warning Type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No 'System' log warning events found from 25/02/2010 to 25/02/2010.

My system crashed 3 or 4 times on the 25th.