need some help, freezing up. strange only when cold??

T

thesteve151

New Member
i built my computer almost a year ago, and every so often it will freeze up when cold (shortly after starting.) then just recently it started freezing up in the start menu while starting up. (the screen that says Microsoft and has the 3 blue bars that go from left to right.) once i finally get it to start and it gets hot it will run fine. i am on it right now, and will just leave it on for now.

so i took it in to get it all tested. everything checked out except, one of my raptor hard drives. they said it kept freezing up half way through the test, but the other one is fine. so they took the "bad" one out and re-installed windows using just the "good" one.
took it home, and it still is doing the same thing. i doubt they mixed up the hard drives but could it be anything else.

it is not over clocked at this time, but it was before.

system stats.
AMD opteron 170 denmark 1000MHz HT socket 939 Dual Core processor

DFI LanParty UT CFX3200-DR Socket 939 ATI CrossFire Radeon Express 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard

OCZ Platinum Edition 2GB 184-pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000) Unbuffered dual channel kit system memory

ATi Radeon 9700 graphic card, (i think 9700)

Antec 550 watt output power supply

Operating system WindowsXP

X2 Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM hard drives raided
and also 1 Western Digital 250GB hard drive for storage (i think 250GB)

Lian-Li full tower case

i also have 2 DVD burners, floppy drive and i just added a card reader, the problem got worse shortly after i installed the card reader, but i doubt it is that.



any help would be greatly appreciated.
i have had to re-install windows twice this year, and my 1 year warranty from newegg is up in 2 months.:(
 
defective memory can cause all kinds of lock ups, even after wiping out the OS and installing it clean. Your system, and the OS will page memory for instructions constantly, so if it is defective in any way it can corrupt data thus causing a system to crash or lock.

However, that may or may not be your case, but with a problem as broad as you're experiencing it is best to start a process of eliminiation. We can safely assume it is not the OS since it is still doing it even after a clean install, so perhaps it is hardware related.

Another possibility is the boot sector on your HD is going bad. There are many possibilities. Also, a comptuer system also stores memory in cache, and virtual memory on the HD. So the corruption could be coming from anywhere.

some free diagnostic tools:

http://www.memtest86.com/

I would also download the diagnostic test from WD for the raptors and run that as well.
 
i have already run the memtest that came on my board, and it passed.
as for the hard drives that is the big question. i need to get the one that was taken out tested to see if they took out my good one.
i will do that tomorrow, after i get out from taking my finals.
 
yup. i had an old WD caviar run perfectly in 10F... and every HDD i have. try replacing the memory if you have a spare one, and see what hapens. and then, start off with the basic componenets, (try and error time): HDD, PSU, VIDEO CARD, MOBO, CPU, CPU FAN. take the rest out, and see if it still freezes..
 
they are checking the mother board and power supply right now.
i doubt it is the power supply though since the freezing is at the exact same spot each time.
they are also re checking the hard drives. hope it is just the hard drives, since they have already been reformatted.
 
ok i got home, and of course just on cue it froze up in the start menu.
so i started unplugging stuff until it worked.
nothing seemed to be causing it until i loosened the monitor plug.
after that it worked just fine?
so i will see it it was just a coincidence, or if that was the problem.
that would make since though. because at the computer shop, or when i was at work no one bothers to screw the monitor cable on.

still that is weird, any one else ever have something similar happen to them?
 
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