Random Freeze Ups

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vw-Jeff

New Member
Well I have had my homebuilt pc for a little over 2 years now. It used to run just fine. I got a laptop and stopped using the pc for a while. When I went back to using it, it now decides to freeze up when gaming. It used to play WoW just fine and now seems to require all of the graphics options turned down below default and even then randomly freezes up. The same thing sometimes happens when playing flash games online. Runs fine browsing the net and such, seems to be just games. All the fans are spinning, although the case fan is really slow... Video card is nothing spectacular especially now but was less than good even in it's day. If you want to know any specs I can look them up real fast.

Specs:
P4 2.6 gHz
Intel Board
nVidia Geforce fx 5500
2x 512 mb Kingston ram 266mhz i believe.
100 gb 7200rpm Wester digital hd
lite-on cd burner
floppy drive ftw.
 
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You most likely are going to find that you will have to remove and reinstall the drivers/software for your video card as well as updating your sound. While you using the desktop regularly the drivers and other files remained fresh from being repeatedly loaded up on a daily most likely basis. Plus after the two year of normal use your system needs a good cleaning.

Now cleaning would be best here? After two years of use with a number of new programs added/removed, hardware swaps, and now useless temp folders used by software installers you also have a pile of now useless entries to see removed in the system registry as well. Let's do some house cleaning.
The following two freewares do an execellent job at just that.

RegCleaner has been a great one for getting rid of the crap that builds up in the system registry. The information on this tool as well as the download link is seen at http://www.dewassoc.com/support/useful/regcleaner.htm

The infamous "crap cleaner" as it's name implies is another freeware called CCleaner found at http://www.ccleaner.com/ Besides cleaning a drive you should also plan to use the defragmenter tool included in Windows since the drive has been idle for a long period of time. These things will be a start in improving overall system performance as well as troubleshooting driver issues as the more common reason for seeing game freezes.
 
After two years of use
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it would be 2 years of nonuse...

Now cleaning would be best here? After two years of use with a number of new programs added/removed, hardware swaps, and now useless temp folders used by software installers you also have a pile of now useless entries to see removed in the system registry as well. Let's do some house cleaning.
The following two freewares do an execellent job at just that.
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Spyware is something thats sorta always there, not limited to execution during gaming...


@vw-jeff
Grab a neat little program called SpeedFan to track the temperatures (I supsect that for some reason, your box is throttling itself resulting in slowdowns) Enable the logging option and start playing for a bit, then have a look at the temperature and voltage logs
 
I've got that speedfan thing. At idle it's sitting at 64c. The window shows a picture of a flame next to that. I'm guessing that's too high... I dusted out the machine today and everything. I'll check for drivers and such and then maybe run thsoe cleanup programs. I enabled logging on that speedfan thing but can't find where it is storing the logs. I'll leave it running and jump on WoW till I crash. I'll post the logs if I can find them.
 
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Praetor said:
Thats why. For reference sake (as processors vary), treat "60C" as a "extremely bad" temperature.
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Is there anything Easy I can do about this? I used that silver goo stuff when I installed the fan and heatsink. Fan is spinning fine at like 2600 rpm according to speedfan. I really don't want to upgrade to like an aftermarket cooling system or anything due to this being my backup computer...

I have run both of those cleanup programs, updated my video drivers. Seems to be not crashing in WoW so far but my temps are still high at 64c.
 
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I used that silver goo stuff when
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How much silver goo? :P (too much = worse than too little)

when I installed the fan and heatsink
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I really don't want to upgrade to like an aftermarket cooling system
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That would suggest you're on stock cooling ... and you're using silver goo ... did you scrape off the old stuff first? ;)
 
Umm. I don't think I scraped it off. but I only put it on once. Maybe tomorrow I'll go pick up some new Arctic Silver and scrap off and re-apply it. I'll update then I guess.
 
It sounds like the thermal pad needs replacement. Those get hardened up and brittle losing the ability to transfer heat away from the cpu. Besides a 3rd cpu cooler strongly recommended for a P4 model since those are known for running at higher temps then most others including the AMD Socket A Atholon XP lineup.

Since it obvously wasn't a full 2yrs of inactivity how long were you running the laptop? Apparently the freewares and updating drivers saw an improvement. But running a cpu hot is no good. On the last build here that happened when a fan simply quit where 74C seemed average until the 85C max was reached before the new Zalman cooler could be installed. The only way that one runs now is to lower the front side bus on the old board.
 
Umm. I don't think I scraped it off. but I only put it on once
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Every time you look at the bottom of the heatsink you gotta clean it and reply. Read that again. Word for word. :)

The only way that one runs now is to lower the front side bus on the old board.
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Actually, lowering the bus is less than half-the-battle ... you've gotta drop the vCore as well as lowering the bus (substanatially) on its own is worse than leaving it alone.
 
The old case is rather in pieces since the Atholon XP3200+ was set aside hoping to grab another one or perhaps 3400+ wen in to use it for beta testing and not worry about anything if it goes. The board and everything else is in good shape. It simply won't with bios set to 200mhz there and is seen as an XP2500+ model. It makes you wonder when both had Barton cores and the 2500+ oced good.

When you go to apply the AS5 you squeeze out about enough to form a droplet the size of a rasin and stir slightly to see it blend somewhat. Then you simply lower the hsf evenly and it will spread the thin layer needed. Run the system about 3 to 4yrs. only and shut it down for several hours. The cpu temps will hit the roof in that short amount of time but it starts the bonding process going. Watch those temps for the first days afterwards as well.
 
After applying new temperature goo (not AS5 Brand, but still) I'm now 2*c higher than I was before. It has been around 4 hours since applying. I will now shut down for the night and see if it is better when I reboot. I'm starting to give up hope. Or maybe my temp gauge is somehow wrong?
 
The initial cool down after running the system for that period of time is where the actual bonding will take place. Over the next few days the temps will start dropping since it takes about two weeks for a full bond to take place. You just have to keep an eye on it to make sure the bonding is good by watching temps gradually drop.
 
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