PC freeze - what to do?

Osem · 25-02-2007, 13:33

Hi guys - just occasionally my Medion PC freezes for no apparent reason. I have also had this experience with my older Dell PII PC which has a convenient reset button on the front case. A single push of this reboots the computer and all is well. Anyway when this happens on this PC the on/off button is unresponsive and there is no reset button that I can find. As a result I am forced to turn off/on using the main switch on the back of the casing. Is there a better way than this?

Cheers as always.

dilli-theclaw · 25-02-2007, 13:36

If you keep your finger on the on/off button for 5 seconds it should shut down.

AndrewJ · 25-02-2007, 14:27

Buy a new tower and build a new computer

AMD rawk!

Paul K · 25-02-2007, 14:29

When it freezes "for no reason" what are you doing on the PC? Has it been running for a while? Is it normally happening when you run a CPU intensive program?

25-02-2007, 14:31

anything in event viewer? first thing to check after ev will be temperatures then ram then cpu

Halcyon · 25-02-2007, 17:58

Do a scan disk of your system to check all is ticking over ok and also check your fans are also operating well and not causing it to get too hot and crash in there.

Osem · 25-02-2007, 21:46

Thanks guys - doesn't happen very often so can't really spot a trend except that sometimes it's happened when I've been trying to open or close new IE pages. Most I use the pc for is surfing the net (places like this) plus watching tv at the same time sometimes. Don't download music/videos or play games on here. What is event viewer and how do I do a scan disk? Ta for the tip about holding down the on/off button - will try that next time.

Remember I'm a novice guys

Oddly enough it happened about an hour after I posted my original message. The wife had been trying to access our email, had some problems and tried to shutdown via the start menu but the shutdown was locked. We switched off/on and got a black and white restore screen with IIRC an F1 option to restore to an earlier date or a carry on to start as normal. I decided on the latter and the machine started up again fine and has been ok ever since. I later discovered my wife had (got to love her

) been resting a tray on the keyboard whilst using the mouse to access our email accounts and I think it had been pressing on some of the keys without her knowledge.

Paul K · 25-02-2007, 21:50

What operating system are you running?
Scan disk can normally be accesed by right clicking the drive in "My computer", select properties and then tools.
Event viewer (If XP) is in the administrative tools, in the control panel.

25-02-2007, 22:08

or right click my comp click manage then event viewer

Osem · 26-02-2007, 08:58

TY guys - not used those features before so will have a look later as soon as I have time. BTW I'm on a Celeron 3.06ghz machine with 448mb ram (presumably the missing 64mb is being used elsewhere) running XP SP2.

Graham M · 26-02-2007, 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Osem

TY guys - not used those features before so will have a look later as soon as I have time. BTW I'm on a Celeron 3.06ghz machine with 448mb ram (presumably the missing 64mb is being used elsewhere) running XP SP2.

Onboard graphics probably

Osem · 26-02-2007, 10:12

Ok guys - in event viewer there are 5 categories listed: antivirus, application, IE, security and system.

Under Antivirus there are numerous 'Information' entries dating back to Oct 06which is when I set up the machine on the web.

Under Applications there are also numerous 'Information' entries then a series of Warning entries labelled Userenv (1 @ 22.50 23/02/07) and MsiInstaller (6 @ 13.53 23/02/07). This sequence is repeated on 16/02/07 @ 13.39.
There are then 2 Error entires labelled Lifecam (know about those) also on 16/02/07 at 13.37.

No entries are listed under IE.

Under Security there are numerous daily Success Audit entries dating back to 14/02/07.

Under System there are again numerous daily information entries dating back to 15/02/07 mainly listed with Service Control manager as the main source but with a very few listed with eventlog or WMPNetworkSVC as the source. There are 4 Warning entries sourced as W32Time dated on 20, 21, 23 & 24/02/07.

Not sure which if any of the above may be relevant to this issue though.

Yesterday's freeze up happened at around 14.30 although as I said there were contributing factors due to my wife's actions so we're not sure if this was caused by the same issues as the previous freezes. What should I be looking for in event viewer for that time/date?

When it happens again I will obviously log the time/date and circumstances to assist in any further investigations.

Graham M · 26-02-2007, 10:17

None of those entries seem to be very serious

Osem · 26-02-2007, 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeph

None of those entries seem to be very serious

Phew!!!!!!!

So what should I be looking for in event viewer when the next freeze up happens ?

Cheers

26-02-2007, 21:57

in that case I think it could well be ram. If it was software you would get an application hang error telling you which piece of software was to blame. Dodgy ram is notorious for freezing systems as is heat and cpu problems. How many stick do you have in your machine>? I would download
memtest 86 (free download will be fine)and create a bootable cd and run full tests