Lock ups

[Jarred]

Between 2 to 48 hrs my machine will do a complete lock up,

I've eleiminated the following causes, (unless is just the OS in general, but I've never expeirenced this)

GPU
HD
OS installation

I'm down it being the RAM, CPU, or the Mobo, ...

??????

[Clay]

any error messages? nothing about RPC is there? Check your event log and see if you notice anything suspect there during the times it locks.

[MUYA]

ooh rpc exploits!!!

nasty if it is...get a software firewall. and a decent AV.

[Jarred]

any error messages? nothing about RPC is there? Check your event log and see if you notice anything suspect there during the times it locks.

No nothing in the event logs, ...no error messages, just a complete freeze.

and what are rpc exploits?

[Clay]

well the RPC exploits are something I think you and I discussed in the past...sounded then like you were behind a firewall and likelihood of that being the case was slim. Sounds like this is probably a hardware issue. :(

[Jarred]

well the RPC exploits are something I think you and I discussed in the past...sounded then like you were behind a firewall and likelihood of that being the case was slim. Sounds like this is probably a hardware issue. :(

yeah...i'm just hoping its the ram or something... regardless I can take any of the hardware back I jsut wanna make sure I know what's causing it...

It might be the mobo, I was having problems with the on-board sound on this mobo, I'm thinking there may be some other defects...

[mustrum]

Just to be sure: YOu talk about freezes and not reboots?
If it reboots it could be your power supply running at the limit or slightly above.
As a first step i'd loosen your ram timings and look if that helps.

[Jarred]

Just to be sure: YOu talk about freezes and not reboots?
If it reboots it could be your power supply running at the limit or slightly above.
As a first step i'd loosen your ram timings and look if that helps.

yes freezes, not reboots, ram timings? how would I go about loosining them>?

[mustrum]

yes freezes, not reboots, ram timings? how would I go about loosining them>?
You need to go into your system bios by pressing del right after powering on.
There you look for memory settings. Try 3/3/2.5 7 first.
If that wont help try 4/4/3 11. Those numbers will make sence as soon you enter the bios you'll see.
It's the timings of the memory. Slower timings make the memory more stable but you loose a bit of performance.

You could download memtest86 and run that memorytest to check if your memory is running errorfree as well.

[Underzenith]

If your mouse just completely stops moving with no blue screen or reboots. It's most likely the RAM.

[Riptide]

Run memtest86 for at least 8 hours. If no errors, it's unlikely that the RAM is the culprit. Typically a hard lockup in XP is a hardware issue, but that is not the case 100% of the time. I've seen the Catalyst driver do that in CoD (lock up the system hard) before. I would start with memtest86 if it were me.

[fleshonbone]

Could be your power supply as well...or even spikes in power within your house that your PS and/or surge protector are not handling correctly - do your lights ever dim occasionally or anything like that where your comp. is setup? Are you using a real surge protector or just one of those cheapie multi-outlet jobs? (which are not surge protectors)

If your voltages are jumping around, or the power where your comp is hooked up is spiking alot, this could easily cause lockups that require hard resets.

EDIT: thought of something else - are you using an AMD64 s754 setup? I know for a fact that Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have had memory related problems (DIMM sockets) on their s754 boards - these are on the VIA chipsets - the nforce and SiS 754-based chipsets have no official or silent TSB's as of a few months ago.

[Jarred]

No I'm running a p4 3.4 with an MSI board.

I'll run the memory tests, thanx a bunch guys! :)

[OWA]

Is this the same system where you fried a hard drive and optical drive?

[kirkengaard]

Well, 5 days and I don't know if there's a fix... Did the memory check fix it? If so ignore below.
Possible source I've encountered (no offense to your rig) is flaky hardware...had the same problem for months in college, lost paper after paper to random OS crashes, turned out to be the NIC, which worked fine in its role as a network interface. Have you added any hw to this system lately? You've ruled out GPU, HD and OS, have you tried each PCI card?

'sall I've got -- hoping for the sake of not having to disassemble and reboot one piece at a time that it was the memory.

[saturnotaku]

Ooh, looks like another Chicagoan has joined the ranks. :D