Windows 2000 randomly freezes

Reenee · 12-05-2007, 09:01 AM

I reinstalled Win2K...and, yeah, it randomly freezes. For no reason at anything. I can't be any more descriptive than that. While browsing, just clicking, running Backup...

Every possible patch that was made for it was applied to it.

I used this site as a reference, just to help a bit:
Annoyances.org - Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000

-Power supply? It ran XP well for long periods of time. Can't be this.
-Mixes of drives? Nope. Two hard drives on NTFS.
-Audio drivers? MAYBE. I noticed last night that after some time, Microsoft had removed its sound card drivers for the card on the machine (Soundblaster Live! model SB0060). I hunted it down at the manufacter's site and it works fine. If I had used MS' drivers before, it would crash on startup trying to play the startup sound. But, then again, like I said...it crashed while running Backup. Twice: at the beginning of the process and near the end of it.
-USB hub? Don't have one.
-Overheating? Doubt it. Computer's several year's old and I've never touched the CPU.
-Bad memory? Probably wouldn't be getting far.

So, yeah, the screen just...freezes.

eureka1 · 12-05-2007, 09:44 AM

Most likely a drive conflict, or a bad install.

Overheating wouldn't cause your OS to freeze either, run memtest86+ if you want to test bad memory, but if it ran XP fine, then it should be okay.

*fuсk forum boredom* · 12-05-2007, 10:04 AM

reenee given the huge number of problems you've been having i would say that there is some kind of hardware failure going on

Excel H. Calwell MMVIII · 12-05-2007, 01:02 PM

What do you call a crash that doesn't necessarily bring down the entire machine at once, but causes every program to go unresponsive short of the one that keeps the mouse cursor running?

*fuсk forum boredom* · 12-05-2007, 01:34 PM

a system hang, i suppose

freezes, to me, are when everything completely stops responding

i will forever associate a crash with the BSOD

Reenee · 12-05-2007, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guysatalus

reenee given the huge number of problems you've been having i would say that there is some kind of hardware failure going on

Nah, InstallShield fucked me.

Mills McDougle · 12-05-2007, 03:06 PM

Maybe your power supply's getting old and dying?

Maybe try starting that bitch in safe mode and seeing if there's something installed that you're unfamiliar with? If you think it's your sound card, maybe try seeing how well it works with your onboard audio(unless that is onboard audio?).

Just random stabs at help. I could totally wrong, but nothing wrong with a few extra things to try. If anything, it helps narrow your situation down a bit.

*fuсk forum boredom* · 12-05-2007, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reenee

Nah, InstallShield fucked me.

i meant past that, with the issues you were also having with the CD/DVD drives

eureka1 · 12-05-2007, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reenee

Nah, InstallShield fucked me.

Your PC fucked you.

Excel H. Calwell MMVIII · 12-06-2007, 01:08 PM

I'm beginning to think that my stock 400W power supply might need to be replaced. Just a few hours ago my computer had a stroke and transformed my monitor into a Magic Eye poster.

What do you think about this? How much power should I look into? If it helps, I have three hard drives, two DVD+R DL burners and I plan on getting a PCI Express video card and two sticks of DDR2 667 RAM later in the future.

eureka1 · 12-06-2007, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Excel-2007

I'm beginning to think that my stock 400W power supply might need to be replaced. Just a few hours ago my computer had a stroke and transformed my monitor into a Magic Eye poster.

What do you think about this? How much power should I look into? If it helps, I have three hard drives, two DVD+R DL burners and I plan on getting a PCI Express video card and two sticks of DDR2 667 RAM later in the future.

Do you mean a crap 400w PSU?

400w is quite a lot of power as far as PSUs are concerned, from a good brand. My Antec SmartPower 2.0 is powering my Pentium 4 (needs more power than a C2D), 2GB DDR2 RAM, 3 hard drives, a power hungry 6800 GT, a sound card etc.

As far as that goes however, it MAY just be a VGA cable. Try another VGA cable perhaps, or it may be GFX overheating, could be a number of things really. Trial and error is the way to go.

Excel H. Calwell MMVIII · 12-06-2007, 01:17 PM

I forgot to say that my current video is integrated. I also don't think it's anything else. Memtest86 checks out and it was far from any blue screen I ever encountered in 12 or so years of experience. Using the list of possible failing points in the first post, the only thing I haven't yet considered is the power supply.

Reenee · 12-06-2007, 01:49 PM

I've illegally rectified the seechuhayshun so it's all in Excel's court.

*fuсk forum boredom* · 12-06-2007, 02:40 PM

excel:

that could be a lot of things. you said it's onboard memory so your motherboard could be dying; have you had any other weird problems lately?

power supply could be an issue too, but it's not too likely. from what you said in your post (and some guesses i made) you are approaching the limit of how much your power supply can take care of, but that shouldn't matter unless you have inconsistent power or brownouts.

you might wish to get a hold of some kind of system test CD and run it; even is memtest86 said it's ok, i've seen plenty of bad ram pass tests

Excel H. Calwell MMVIII · 12-06-2007, 05:35 PM

My computer is an Acer Aspire E380. It's not even six months old.

I'm in a room with shoddy at best wiring so I'm becoming more convinced this is a power problem. If so, this would be the second time power has been a problem for a computer for me. I have access to several boot CDs with a number of RAM testing programs but since my video is integrated I'll have to wait until I get a card so I can test all of my RAM instead of just the first 768 MB of it to be sure.