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Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop

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On 02/10/2017 03:35 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> R2D4 wrote:
>
>> Yesterday, while on my desktop and using the hard drive that has XP, the
>> unit suddenly shutdown for no reason, not a normal shut down routine,
>> just went off completely, like turning off by power button.  Then, after
>> I rebooted, it would freeze after a few minutes were the only way to fix
>> was to reboot (ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't do anything).
>>
>> I have had this desktop for over 5 years and haven't had any issues.  At
>> boot up, I can select either XP or Win 7 as each OS is on a separate
>> hard drive.  The first thing I decided to check was the C drive that has
>> XP on it, so I rebooted into Win 7 and then used scandisk to check for
>> and repair any errors overnight.  No shutdowns and Win 7 reported no C
>> drive errors this morning.  Right now, I am running Memtest at boot up
>> for a few hours to see if maybe I have a memory issue going on (but now
>> I'm thinking not since Win 7 was able to run overnight without shut down
>> or freezing.... but it is on a separate hard drive... could the XP hard
>> drive be doing this even though showing no errors?)
>
> You sure the cause is not also the cause of your taskbar freeze problem
> that you posted about over in alt.comp.os.windows-10?  I replied over in
> that newsgroup about that problem.  Looks like you have a bigger problem
> which happens to cause the taskbar freeze.

That wasn't me, no taskbar problems that I know of.

>
> When was the last time you dusted out the inside of your unidentified
> computer?  Dust, lint, and pet hair are thermal insulators.  You need to
> get out the dust, especially from the heat sinks.  In the 5 years that
> you owned the desktop, have you ever dusted it out?

Yes I have.  Believe it or not, I've actually used an electric leaf 
blower with the PC case opened outdoors to dust them.  It has been a 
while though, probably two years.  I do have a small can of air I can 
use if needed.


  Makes sure to blow
> out the heat sinks (CPU, GPU), fans, and both ways through the PSU
> grills (don't take it apart unless you are comfortable doing that).  The
> crud might be impacted on the fan blades so you'll need an ear swab to
> wipe them to scrub off the crud to then blow them out.  Do NOT let the
> fans spin from you blowing air through them.  Use something to block the
> blades from spinning when you blow through the fans (CPU, GPU, case).
> NEVER use a household vacuum cleaner to dust out any electronics.  They
> generate static from the airflow through the nozzle or hose.  You'll
> probably want to disconnected everything from the PC to take it outside
> to blow it out instead of blowing all that accumulated dust into your
> residence.
>
> When the CPU gets too hot (fan not spinning or not fast enough, dust
> blocking air flow, ribbon cables in the way of airflow) it will either
> turn off to save itself or throttle down the CPU duty cycle (to reduce
> the power it consumes to reduce heat but that also slows the PC).  You
> should also check at what temperature thresholds your BIOS/UEFI or
> startup software is configured for when it will stop the PC.
>
> Don't know anything about your hardware since you did not provide any
> specifications.  PSUs lose about 5% capacity per year.  Well, that's for
> a decent quality PSU, not the crappy ones that many users buy to save
> some money when they build their own or the vendors stick into their
> pre-builts.  Most of those cannot even meet their own specs under
> /sustained/ load at their professed ratings.  You need a PSU that has
> sufficient reserve capacity when you build the box so that it still has
> reserve capacity after several years and because you may add more
> hardware (bigger video card, more memory, more HDDs or SSDs, etc).

It is a unit I built from a Tigerdirect kit.  I have two identical 
desktops and both use an MSI G31M3 V2 motherboard, with one having quad 
core and the other dual core CPU.  I have had problems in the past 
trying to upgrade RAM from the native 2 GB to 4, but after trying twice, 
I gave up because the RAM burned out during both tries.  That was the 
first thing I thought of when the problems occurred, but when the RAM 
went bad, the symptoms were different than this time.

The only change I made recently was adding a USB 3 card.  To be able to 
add the card meant having to remove a video card as the MB only has a 
single PCIe slot.  That change I made in the Summer though, so don't 
think that's the issue now.

>
> That desktop is old enough to warrant replacing the CMOS battery.  If it
> gets too weak, you might end up with corrupted values in the CMOS table
> copy of the BIOS settings, or they could revert to some presets that are
> not valid for your hardware config.  Coin cells don't last forever.
> Some will need replacing after 3 years.  Better ones will still die
> after about 5-6 years.

This I'll look into doing, since I installed the original battery.

>
> Time to do some hardware maintenance.  Get some canned air dusters, ear
> swabs, and a replacement CMOS battery.  While you're inside, make sure
> any flat ribbon cables are not blocking airflow (they should be sideways
> to the airflow).  Check the fans spin up okay.  With all power off,
> rotate the blades by hand (for the fans you can get at) to make sure
> they spin freely without any grinding or other indication of wear.

I'll try a dusting/ cleaning.  If worse comes to worse, I could switch 
out power supplies from the nearly identical desktop I hardly use 
(nearly identical but uses different OS).

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Thread

sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop R2D4 <r2d4@stwars.com> - 2017-02-10 11:34 -0500
  Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop "Rodney Pont" <mlist4@infohit.me.uk> - 2017-02-10 17:23 +0000
    Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop R2D4 <r2d4@stwars.com> - 2017-02-10 12:35 -0500
  Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2017-02-10 14:35 -0600
    Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop R2D4 <r2d4@stwars.com> - 2017-02-10 15:56 -0500
      Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2017-02-10 16:19 -0600
        Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop R2D4 <r2d4@stwars.com> - 2017-02-10 22:07 -0500
          Re: sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2017-02-11 00:58 -0600

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