[sbrandt33]

Hello:

I hope someone can help me, I've been fighting with my father-in-law's machine for the last 3 months and am at the end of my rope.

Problem:

1. System freezes after 2-5 minutes when idle.
2. System freezes in an application (Quickbooks or Excel) after 2-5 minutes.
3. System freezes during DVD playback after 2-15 minutes regardless if running in WMP9 or WinDVD4.

When system freezes, must hit reset button to reboot machine.

System Specs:

Foxconn mid-tower case w/ 2 80mm Casefans, 2 USB ports
Abit KX7/333 mainboard running VIA 4in1 4.48 drivers
512 MB 266Mhz RAM
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47Mhz)
Gainward 650 Golden Sample Ti4200 128MB AGP 8x running Detonator 44.71 WHQL drivers
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 OEM running kX Project Audio driver ver. 5.10.0.3534 (PCI Slot 6)
Western Digital 40GB HDD (IDE 1 Master) UDMA Mode NTFS partitions
Iomega internal 250MB Zip (IDE 1 slave) PIO Mode
Acer 20/10/40 CD-RW (IDE 2 Master) PIO Mode
Toshiba SD M1612 DVD-ROM (IDE 2 slave) UDMA Mode
3.5 in. floppy
LinkSys LNE100TX NIC (PCI Slot 4)
Turbolink 420W power supply
Windows XP SP1 OEM
DirectX 9.0b

Peripherals:
HP 1000 USB connection
HP 6110 All-in-One USB connection
Belkin USB 4-port hub
Memorex Internet USB Keyboard running KeyMaestro
Logitech Trackman+ USB

I've tried all the fixes I can find from this site and sites like TweakXP.com and others.
I've loaded the latest ASPI drivers from Adaptec, run a tweaker program (Xteq), disabled services that are not needed etc etc.
I've reloaded the box at least 5 times in 3 months and the problem keeps recurring.
I've moved the sound card into each PCI slot and it's locked up.

My father-lin-law got frustrated and took it to another computer shop and they were unable to fix the problem as well. They reconnected the front USB ports to the USB2 header on the mainboard but I think it's connected incorrectly. The red wire is connected to what the diagram in the manual shows to be a ground pin. Isn't black a negative or ground? Would that cause problems?

With the installed components, this should be one kick-butt multimedia system but it's nothing more than a glorified hunk of junk paperweight.

He's lost faith in me as a tech and in his system. Heck, I've lost faith in myself as a tech....Please, if someone could help, I'd really appreciate it.

Totally Frustrated and ready to break the machine.

~ SB

[toddsmack2k]

It could either be the power supply or the hard drive going bad. Have you tried another PSU or another hard drive? What are the temps on the PC?


Welcome to Driverheaven sbrandt33!

[krazy1]

I agree with the Powersupply and hard drive.... another problem could be a bad Mobo..... I had the same problems with a system a while back and it ended up being a bad mobo....... Only way I was able to figure that out was buy another mobo (the same model) and install that...once I did that all was fine.....

[craig588]

It might be heat too.

[sbrandt33]

Thanks for the responses.

I don't think it's the power supply. The system originally had a 300W PS in it and I pulled my 420W from my system and put it in his.
Heat shouldn't be a factor. System temp ave is around 30C and CPU core temp is 40.5C with peaks to 45C but no higher.

I reinstalled the kX Audio drivers and reconfigured the speakers. Now it can play a DVD all the way through however, the system still locks up when it's at idle, or when the screensaver is running. It's also locking up as he browses the 'net.

~ SB

[krazy1]

Could be a video driver problem if it locks up during the ScreenSaver...... Also check NIC drivers........

[LowLevelOwl]

Try a different video card.

I had similar problems and it turned out to be the video card not playing nice with the motherboard.

[sbrandt33]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I installed Detonator 45.20 drivers and the playback problem seems to have been solved. Was able to watch Disc 1 of LOTR:FOTR from start to finish with no lockups. Streaming video from the 'net also played just fine.

The following problem still persists:

System lockup/complete freezes while idle. It does NOT lockup if it is being used, i.e working in an application.

Examples:

a. Opened Quickbooks, enabled screensaver, left it alone. Locked up within an hour. Returned hardware error (see below). Manually rebooted system.

b. Following reboot: Disabled screensaver. Let system idle. System locked up in less than an hour. Returned hardware error (see below). Manually rebooted system.

c. Following reboot: Enabled screensaver. No other applications running. Let system idle. System was still running fine after 4.5 hours of idle with screensaver running.

Hardware Error that was displayed:

Hardware failure.

**Contact your hardware vendor.**

System halted.

No further information was displayed which is totally worthless to me since I have no way of knowing what device failed.

~SB