Trying to bring back old PC from the dead, freezes after startup [random times] [learning experience]
Q: I have an old P3 933 that started freezing at random times, then finally got so bad that it was seconds after starting. His “death” years ago, my reasons to the PC, I get now.
Anyway, I would like to find out what is wrong with this thing, if nothing else for a learning experience.
Basically it freezes right after startup. I can click on a few things perhaps, but it will lock up solid. No BSOD, no reboot, the screen freezes and it will be like that until the power goes out. Ive tried a fresh install of XP, and it is quite far in that (to the point where you set the time) and then it froze there. Tried again, froze sooner.
What Does this sound like? I obviously know little to nothing about troubleshooting hardware, thats why I post. 
I will look as good, but I thought this might be specific enough can anybody tell me right away what it probably is.
Re:Trying stuff on the ultimate boot cd and nothin gets very far. The CPU tests wont even load, the memory tests all fail at some point. I dont think it would be heat when the memory tests fail at the exact same point. I would assume its the motherboard or CPU?
Any way to narrow it down between the two?
Edit: The StressCPU test actually loaded and ran for like 5 minutes then crashed..odd
Re:Could you try it with the case off and maybe point a fan at it. I doubt it is a heat related issue but this would be an easy way to check.
-Keith
Re:Froze at 79% on each stick of ram. Whatever is bad doesnt like that part of the test. Not sounding good I guess.
Re:Finally got some more time to work on this. It freezes regardless of hard drive, so thats not it. It just froze during memtest86. It was 79% done with no errors. I'm going to run it again with one stick of ram at a time.
Re:Make sure you don't have any bad/leaking capacitors on the motherboard. Check out http://www.badcaps.net I believe.
Re:If the bios posts you've got something to work with.When I'm at this point I usually try a bootable CD like "Ultimate boot CD". This eliminates the OS and provides selectable utilities so you can see if anything is working at all. Run the simplest tests you can find. I usually start with memtest (memory needs to work anyway) from a diskette or cd boot. If memtest fails, strip all but one mem stick out and check each individually. If it still fails, remove cards and drives until all that's left is the minimum components to run memtest. If memtest still fails you have a better handle on what the problem is (mobo, cpu, psu, kb, all ram, mouse, monitor) than you did before.
Once memtest runs you can (re install cards if necessary) check the other components one at a time with the other utilities. A successful XP install requires that everything is working excellently to begin with. Some possibile failed parts could have been bad psu, bad disk sectors, bad IDE cable, mem failure, or even mobo caps. Let the tests point you to the problem.
Jim
Re:What I was thinking but did not say was, if it was then a good PC. You would have a cheap source to install parts from the old PC to learn from. Swapping parts seems to be the only way to fix a dead PC.
Re:"used to have another hard drive and a radeon 9100 pro in it." That could have stressed the PSU? 256MB minimum of memory is needed for XP.
If it matches buy that one- install your memory & add nothing extra.
Re:Nothings added to it now, but I used to have another hard drive and a radeon 9100 pro in it. Its an old compaq presario like this. http://cgi.ebay.com/Compaq-Presario-P-I…8QQcategoryZ140072QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.com/Compaq-Presario-P-III-933-128M-15GIG-CD-ROM-CD-RW_W0QQitemZ280044277661QQihZ018QQcategoryZ140072Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
Re:Hi, Just guessing- if it is not full of lint & crude blocking cooling fans, over the counter PC's have under powered PSU's that can't handle added accessories. They usually need company/pricey replacements. Someone might like to know the brand & model # info- details.
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Tags: learning experience, random times