Guild Wars Forums - GW Guru
 
 

Go Back   Guild Wars Forums - GW Guru > Forest of True Sight > Technician's Corner > Software

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old Jul 01, 2011, 04:06 PM // 16:06   #1
Desert Nomad
 
RedDog91's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Farming for Nick gifts
Profession: R/
Advertisement

Disable Ads
Default Computer Randomly Freezing

For the past few months my computer freezing randomly for a secondd or two and then continues. Video pausing, audio stutters, and mouse jumps if I move it. And the clock on my desktop slowly becomes more and more behind schedule.

I've looked everywhere for advice and have done everything I can think of to fix it. 99% of places say that resetting the BIOS will fix it, but it didn't.

I've cleaned the registry, defragged, reset BIOS (in 3 different ways), updated every driver, error checked and recovered bad sectors, changed BIOS settings to run more tests and fix errors on start up (and reset BIOS settings when that didn't work), and I've even completely restored the Operating System. I honestly don't know of anything else I could possibly do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by RedDog91; Jul 01, 2011 at 04:17 PM // 16:17..
RedDog91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 01, 2011, 06:35 PM // 18:35   #2
Hell's Protector
 
Quaker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Canada
Guild: Brothers Disgruntled
Default

Did you clean the dust out of it?
It could be overheating. Also check that any and all fans are working.
Quaker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 01, 2011, 06:55 PM // 18:55   #3
Desert Nomad
 
RedDog91's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Farming for Nick gifts
Profession: R/
Default

I have indeed gotten all the dust out and have been keeping it clean since the problem arose. I checked to see if it was overheating and all temperatures are normal. Also yesterday I unplugged and replugged every wire one at a time to check if any of them were the cause.

I honestly don't know what could possibly be the issue, other than this problem the computer runs great, faster than any other computer in the house. But the random freezing has made it almost unusable.
RedDog91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 01, 2011, 07:59 PM // 19:59   #4
Academy Page
 
Draca's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Sweden
Profession: E/
Default

Check if there is a bios update for your motherboard. Resetting the CMOS might help too. It is possible there is a hardware failure on the motherboard. Can also see it being the power supply having strange surges.

Any more information where it happens? idle in windows, while surfing or in a game. Model and brand of the motherboard/computer will also help.

Last edited by Draca; Jul 01, 2011 at 08:05 PM // 20:05..
Draca is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 01, 2011, 09:03 PM // 21:03   #5
Krytan Explorer
 
Tharg's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Massachusetts
Guild: Omega Glory
Profession: Mo/
Default

is it only in GW or also in other programs?

Do you have enough RAM? If you are using multiple programs with little RAM, the computer uses the hard disk to swap memory between RAM and hard disk.
Tharg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 01, 2011, 11:05 PM // 23:05   #6
Desert Nomad
 
RedDog91's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Farming for Nick gifts
Profession: R/
Default

I have updated the BIOS twice in the past few months since the issue arose. I have tried taking the CMOS battery out for an entire day to reset it and have even replaced the CMOS battery when that didn't work.

It happens at any given moment. And the longer the computer is on, the more often it happens, after an hour it won't go 3 seconds without freezing. It will happen sometimes before I even open a single program.

My computer model is Gateway GT5622. Motherboard is ECS, model 945GCT-NM.
RedDog91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 02, 2011, 01:20 PM // 13:20   #7
Hell's Protector
 
Quaker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Canada
Guild: Brothers Disgruntled
Default

My next guess would be an actual hardware fault - quite possibly a bad capacitor on the motherboard or in the power supply.
It sounds, in any case, as though it's going to take some work to find the problem. As with many such things, it's easiest to eliminate hardware problems by swapping parts, but that's hard to do if you don't have spare parts.

Btw - you don't have anything overclocked, do you?

If you have more than one RAM stick, you could try running it with only one at a time to eliminate RAM.

Last edited by Quaker; Jul 02, 2011 at 01:24 PM // 13:24..
Quaker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 04, 2011, 11:40 PM // 23:40   #8
Desert Nomad
 
RedDog91's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Farming for Nick gifts
Profession: R/
Default

Though none of the suggestions fixed the issue, I would still like to thank those of you who offered advice.

For some reason after months of screwing up, it appears to have fixed itself today when I haven't even done anything to it in over 2 days. It glitched for an hour when I first turned it on, and now it's been working right for about 7 hours. I'm a bit hesitant to turn it off to see if it's still fixed upon reboot, as it may screw up again and might not fix itself next time.
RedDog91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 05, 2011, 02:15 PM // 14:15   #9
Hell's Protector
 
Quaker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Canada
Guild: Brothers Disgruntled
Default

Well, for example, a while back, when quad-core CPUs were relatively new, freezing of GW was relatively common. At the time, a work around was to force GW to only use 1 core. On my system, the problem eventually went away after some auto-updates to Windows, etc.
So it could very well be that some auto-update or auto-repair fixed it (until the next frig up.)
Quaker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 05, 2011, 05:12 PM // 17:12   #10
Ascalonian Squire
 
Ouwebak's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Default

Try replacing the cable from hard-disk to main board.
(My other pc appeared to freeze for no apparant reason. When it happened during a Lan-Party, someone suggested to replace the cable, which fixed the freezing problem)
Ouwebak is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 06, 2011, 04:07 AM // 04:07   #11
Desert Nomad
 
RedDog91's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Farming for Nick gifts
Profession: R/
Default

@Quaker
It's not just GW, it's the entire machine. It happens even when nothing is open.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ouwebak View Post
Try replacing the cable from hard-disk to main board.
(My other pc appeared to freeze for no apparant reason. When it happened during a Lan-Party, someone suggested to replace the cable, which fixed the freezing problem)
Since restarting it, the problem has returned. I'll try this tomorrow if I can find a place that has the cable (BestBuy?)
RedDog91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 06, 2011, 02:16 PM // 14:16   #12
Hell's Protector
 
Quaker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Canada
Guild: Brothers Disgruntled
Default

Actually, before replacing any cables, open the machine up and make sure all the cables are properly connected. Unplugging and re-plugging can help to fix any loose or dirty connections.
Quaker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Jul 06, 2011, 02:19 PM // 14:19   #13
Academy Page
 
Draca's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Sweden
Profession: E/
Default

Hmm Ouwebak just gave me an idea. It might be that your main drive is taking to long to respond to windows. Which in turn would make the entire system hang for a second or more. If you have a other drive try installing windows on it and run that as a main drive and see if the problem is still here.

More expensive is to try and run spinrite on the drive from grc.com.
Draca is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Share This Forum!  
 
 
           

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 12:48 AM // 00:48.


Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright ©2000 - 2016, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
jQuery(document).ready(checkAds()); function checkAds(){if (document.getElementById('adsense')!=undefined){document.write("_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Adblock', 'Unblocked', 'false',,true]);");}else{document.write("