CPU locked up

N

Nobody_

New Member
Im fixing a PC for someone. When I installed a fresh copy of XP on a new hard drive (which took about 10 hours) I looked diligently to find out why this PC was lagging so bad. The specs are a little out to date, but there was no reason why this desktop was running slower then a pentium II. After checking the RAM, I next went to the processor which was locked at 100%, this was the problem.

I now realize that the person thought he had a virus on his last hard drive, but that wasnt his problem, the PC is locked, and I dont know why.

I'm assuming that the processor is shot, anyone else know the cause?
 
Its a pentium 4 with 1 gig stick and 256mb stic

(ram is pc 3200)


I know these specs are a little outdated, but this should still run moderately fast with nothing on it.
 
What is the gigahertz rating of the Pentium 4? Have you ran an error check on the hard drive? I am wondering if the processor is even the problem.

Also, go into the BIOS and check the temperature of the processor after running this computer for several minutes.
 
Cpu speed is 2.4 GHz. If anything were slowing it down it would be the 533 mh bus speed


I switched the drives in his pc and my pc. His drive booted in 5 seconds (from start to xp). My drive, in his machine, took about 4 minutes until I obviously saw that it was not a hard drive problem.


This explains that either the CPU or the motherboard is at fault right?


Also: the bios is pretty old and doesnt list cpu or any temperatures
 
The problem is rarely the central processing unit. My guess is the motherboard is defective and on its way out.

There was a motherboard I dealt with in the past that was defective. It would cause system hangs similar to what you are experiencing.

Could you buy a new model motherboard with an Athlon II processor and use his present case? Sounds like it is time for him to buy new components. Not worth it to buy a motherboard for an old Pentium 4 processor. You will pay too much for old technology and Pentium 4 processors are obsolete and slow compared to modern processors.
 
Thank you. Thats pretty much what I told him. Time for a new unit. Im gonna salvage the ram and hard drive and maybe he'll let me add his processor to my collection ;)
 
Do you mean that the computer actually locks up as in freezes, or that the CPU usage stays at 100%? In the latter case, ctrl+alt+del -> Processes -> sort by CPU usage and see what's hogging all the resources.
 
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