December 20, 2000

If anyone has any advice on diagnosing random (and I do mean random) computer freezes, it'd be greatly appreciated. I've pretty much eliminated software causes by formatting and reinstalling, and have swapped out almost every piece of software, including memory, hard drives and CD-ROM drives. I'd suspect the CPU if the crashes followed an overheat pattern (more frequent the longer it's left on), but that's not the case. Maybe damaged I/O chips. In any case, I'm very much at the end of my very, very long rope.

I'm particularly interested in any diagnostic software or hardware anyone can recommend for rigorous testing of hardware. I don't mean something that tells me the speed on my CD-ROM drive, I mean something that's smart enough to provide access to system info just before a crash. Professional repair software/hardware. Anything.

Thank you for your consideration.

comments...

Lynsey, December 20, 2000 10:21 AM:

usr/bin/girl posted this site.

http://www.protonic.com/

I don't know if it will help, but I certainly

understand your frustration. My computer -

sigh. I have to start it holding down F8 and

then "4," then "y" to load each command. I blame

Bill Gates, myself. Is there really such a

program as what you describe in your post -

something that actually tells you what's

wrong, rather than bringing up arcane,

incomprehensible plaques?

John, December 28, 2000 9:40 AM:

OS: NT4 and 2000 have numerous error system and error logs; Win9x nothing easily accessible;Unix and Linux are riddled with text errorlogs and procedural logs. Nobody really likes naming them with a .log extension, for some reason, but you can discover the logs associated with a particular viewer or app by noting the extensions asked for in the "open" file dialogs associated with the applet.



Is this a new machine with new problems or old machine with new problems? Warrantee?



The length of time a machine is just running, doing no work, has little to do with processor heat (unless you are missing one or more fans or your vents are blocked), so I think that ruling out heat is unwise. Processor heat is generated when you actually perform computational work of some sort.

All of the contemporary versions of Windows have an applet that gives you a view into system resources. With NT and 2000, the task manager is it; Win9x has a system viewer of some sort, found in Start|Programs|Accessories|System. Fire it up and run some intensive program, like seti@home, which will use all your clock ticks if it can.

If your machine doesn't fail at high processor usage, there are only two alternatives, given your earlier swapping efforts: power supply (most likely if it's an older machine) and motherboard (newer machine).



Drop me a note if there is no remedy from this.



John

Eliot Gelwan, January 3, 2001 11:50 AM:

Windows comes with a utility called Dr. Watson that may catch what's causing those crashes. Run with it for awhile. Also, random crashes may relate, I've found, to your screen saver if you have one enabled. Disable it and see what happens, or change to a different one.

Matt Melashenko, October 15, 2001 8:53 AM:

Try testing the following in these order:



power supply,

memory,

HDD

motherboard



Matt Melashenko

mjmrad@yahoo.com