[rparkes]

gday
this is going to be a long post - im just gonna put down all the problems that have been happening

ok well first thing - a while ago my computer started freezing and having boot-up problems and in general just started screwing up
so i thought probably viruses and that so i decided i'd reformat it when the freezing got really regular-
but then it froze DURING the reformat - and then when i tried again it had zapped out my D: drive - so i lost all my importatn stuff that i needed to keep

anyway the freezing and the boot-up problems continued anyway - so it proved to be a total waste of time (and my stuff) -
also i dont know how relevant this is - but when i play some games the temperature of my graphics card goes up to sometimes 85 degrees which as im fairly sure is way too high, and the graphics of some games just stuff up when it gets too hot.

anyway back to the bootup problems - in the last few weeks it has been taking any number of times to boot up - sometimes it works first time, other times it takes 10+ times
there are four different things that seem to happen:
1) disk read error, press ctrl, alt, del... (common)
2) disk boot failure, instert system disk and press enter... (only rarely)
3) just freezes at the windows xp loading thing (rarely)
4) actually works

once im in windows it barely ever has any problems at all - except IF it freezes it usually gives me errors when i try restart - ive started leaving it on standby so i dont have to go through the boot-up process - although sometimes it just freezes when it comes off standby and i have to restart it anyway


except it all became worse this morning
i had it on standby over night as usual - i turned it on and it froze when i got it off standby (happens fairly often)
then restarted it - and now it says 'disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter' every time - i cant get past it at all - ive had it before but usually i just restart it and it works eventually - this time no chance

for a while this morning - my keyboard and mouse even stopped working so i couldnt press enter even - just weird i didnt change anything - then they just started working again
so about all i can really do now - is boot from the windows xp disk or go into the bios, but since ive never changed anything - maybe theres something wrong with the hardware - no real idea
i dont particularly want to reformat it again if i can avoid it- last time i lost all my stuff and have only just got most of it back - does anyone know if i can access the data at all to back it up or something?

anyway thanks for reading - sorry its so long - the problems werent bothering me really until this morning when it went from an inconvenience to a major problem.

hope someone has some ideas - thanks for anything that you might come up with

Robbie
(as a seemingly unrelated issue - when i got to windows, my internet would disconnect every single time in under 20 minutes - frustrating)

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you've got alot of random wierd issues that can be caused by absolutley anything

you mentioned the graphix card temps being high which would deffinitely cause some of these restart issues....
do you know what your processor temps are during these crashes (usually you can check this temp in bios right after a crash)

to see if this is software related please do the following
In safe mode:

Right click MY COMPUTER, choose PROPERTIES, choose ADVANCED, choose the SETTINGS button in the Startup And RECOVERY section, and uncheck AUTOMATICALLY RESTART

Now reboot. This should result in the BSOD error...report the STOP ERROR and any parameters.

start > run, type
eventvwr.msc
<enter>

Look under systems and applications for items with red Xs that happened at the SAME time as your problem...list them here.

if you can start in safe mode do
start > run > chckdsk /r and let that run to completion (it may ask you to schedule the check at reboot...if it does..say yes and let it restart your computer)

[dsenette]

you've got alot of random wierd issues that can be caused by absolutley anything

you mentioned the graphix card temps being high which would deffinitely cause some of these restart issues....
do you know what your processor temps are during these crashes (usually you can check this temp in bios right after a crash)

to see if this is software related please do the following
In safe mode:

Right click MY COMPUTER, choose PROPERTIES, choose ADVANCED, choose the SETTINGS button in the Startup And RECOVERY section, and uncheck AUTOMATICALLY RESTART

Now reboot. This should result in the BSOD error...report the STOP ERROR and any parameters.

start > run, type
eventvwr.msc
<enter>

Look under systems and applications for items with red Xs that happened at the SAME time as your problem...list them here.

if you can start in safe mode do
start > run > chckdsk /r and let that run to completion (it may ask you to schedule the check at reboot...if it does..say yes and let it restart your computer)

[rparkes]

ok thanks for the reply
ive been trying out some of the things you suggested
the problem is with this computer at the moment - is things just change for no reason, for example about 5 minutes after i made the first post, having not been able to get into windows at all that day, it got back into windows! for no apparent reason
and since then - it has maybe only had 1 error on start-up over a few days of on and offs.
except that another thing that has changed is the freezing - it now freezes far more often and in no real pattern
today ive been trying to burn a dvd all day, for this to happen the video im burning needs to be encoded - this is about a one hour process, every time i tried it (maybe 10-15 times) it froze after about 2-5 minutes of encoding
except ive got it going at the moment right now (final time before i gave up) - and its been going for 25 minutes this time without a freeze
i just dont get it

anyway back to some of your suggestions
the processor temps - i couldnt find any measure of this, so i found a program called Motherboard Monitor that measures the temps
at the moment - encoding the video the cpu temp is 75-76 - i thought it might be too high but not sure
before i started encoding it was hovering round 60-63
i was thinkin it might freeze once it reached a certain temp - but its not going higher than 76 so it might be ok

the next thing - i havent had any BSOD since my post - so thats a good thing i guess
the event log - when i go into system, there are lots of errors - but they all occur i think when i start up my computer, not when it freezes, these are the main ones - i started up at 11.20

11:20:58 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.
11:20:59 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.
11:21:00 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.
11:21:00 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.
11:21:01 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.
11:21:02 - A parity error was detected on \Device\Ide\IdePort1.
11:21:02 - The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.

Another 5 'controller errors' at 11:21:07 and 11:21:08
and another 'parity error' at 11:21:08

Then 5 more 'controller errors' at 11:21;58, 59, and 11:22:00

11:22:00 - Time Provider NtpClient: An error occurred during DNS lookup of the manually configured peer 'time.windows.com,0x1'. NtpClient will try the DNS lookup again in 15 minutes. The error was: A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host. (0x80072751)
11:22:00 - The time provider NtpClient is configured to acquire time from one or more time sources, however none of the sources are currently accessible. No attempt to contact a source will be made for 14 minutes. NtpClient has no source of accurate time.

then theres more of the other ones.

in 'application' there are no errors

the only other thing was the disk check
it wouldnt get past stage 2 (freezing) - when i tried it yesterday but ill try it again now that this encoding thing has for some reason got through - maybe the freezing on the whole has been (temporarily) cured

oh well thanks heaps for your help - i now have my dvd burnt, although im not sure why it worked this time
cheers
Robbie

[dsenette]

definitely get back to me after the checkdisk,,,also when you get a chance try updating your video card drivers.. those temps aren't great...but not the worst ive seeen...can you see if you can chec =k the temps in bios...usually under health monitoring or something,,,

[rparkes]

gday
i tried the checkdisk a few times - it froze at different times, then the fourth time through about an hour later it all worked fine - no errors - it was clean, it took around 15-20 minutes to do it all.

im probably just stupid or missing it or something but i cant find those temps in the bios or 'health monitoring' either,

i updated the video card drivers - and a fair few other drivers, it now seems to start up pretty much every time which is good progress i suppose.

but im still unable to pinpoint the freezing problem - it just occurs almost totally randomly, - ie. burning dvds, playing games, doing absolutely NOTHING. - no idea

cheers
Robbie

Edited by rparkes, 24 February 2006 - 06:23 AM.

[dsenette]

i tried the checkdisk a few times - it froze at different times, then the fourth time through about an hour later it all worked fine - no errors - it was clean, it took around 15-20 minutes to do it all

check disk freezing is not a good thing...and....even without errors it usually takes 45 minutes at least.....


go to www.memtest.org and follow their instructions for making a bootable disk for testing your ram...i want y ou to run it for at least 1 hour...2 would be best...report any errors

[rparkes]

ok i just left it on overnight - 8-9 hours about
no errors at all, it was fine

[dsenette]

let's do a more physical memtest....how many sticks of ram are in the machine?

[rparkes]

It's got 2 x 256 MB sticks

__
Just a quick thing i noticed when I start up - before the device listing there is a line that says
IDE Channel 2: Master Disk: LBA, PI0á64, 571GB

now i don't know what this is or what it means, but i dont have anything that is 571 GB, - the hard drive is 232 GB, (should be 250 but it says 232) - probably something totally irrelevant but i thought i should mention it

Robbie