I require technical assistance

[Matt Varnish]

Ok.. my pc is acting up.. after three years of awesome service..now it gets errors upon boot. Bluexscreen comes up. Dumps memory. . And says it could be a new hardware or so ft ware issue. I got it to work yesterday.. once it gets past the file it needs or whatever.. it runz just fine. This morning. . It won't load. Is it a hardrive problem.. should I reformat and start clean or isbit time for a new machine. It has never been reformatted or os loaded since it was built in 2011.

[CA$H]

Need more info.

Can you boot to safe mode without issue? (Tap F8 on boot until text menu comes up) - If it loads into windows safe mode then you know its a software/driver issue. If it hangs when trying to boot to safe mode, it will show the file name it is hanging on. You can then look up which program uses that file (Google, or Tristan)

When did the issue start? sometimes drivers automatically update and can cause issues on boot.

I would hold off re installing. It is most likely just an app loading on boot or a driver that is the issue.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

Tristan, while your here, can you provide some insight into my issue?

My PC has started freezing randomly lately. It doesn't BSOD the whole thing just locks up and the screen image freezes. No mouse or keyboard activity at all. I have to hard reset to get it to work again.

I do notice it's only happening when I'm playing videos (GOM player) or playing games. Also, it might be more prevalent when I'm running chrome/video player/world of tanks together.

Video card drivers are good, though the 'current' drivers are 2 years old but still listed as most recent on company website.

I've read it could be almost anything but before I start considering replacing the whole thing do you have any ideas?

[CA$H]

Lock up - that is usually either video (memory leak, drivers freezing, etc)

Off chance it is overheating.....

Try

Start > run> eventvwr
Under Windows logs > System - look for Red Stop sign errors, or check the time stamp from the last time it froze (or wait for it to happen again, then reboot and look). It should specify the system file or driver that caused it. If nothing is there, then check under the application logs and see......

[Diragi]

Possibly bad ram?

[Matt Varnish]

Well.. had to reinstall per tristan.. very basic once it finished and it wouldn't detect my router or my mouse. Had to literally walk to work and get my non usb mouse to have some sort of control. Guess I need win7 for dummies.. thouhh its been about ten yes rs since had to install an os.

[Diragi]

If it's not detecting your USB ports you might need to update the drivers for the motherboard.

[Pripyat]

If you can back up any files on the OS drive you should reinstall windows after formatting the hd. I have a copy an extra copy of Windows 7 32bit if you want to bring the box over here we can reinstall.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

Just had another freeze tonight. I actually had three freezes but the first two only froze for a minute then everything came back. The third time it didn't come back at all after waiting 5 minutes.

A video was playing in VLC media player at all times of freezing as well as downloading/uploading in google chrome.

I checked the event viewer and didn't see any criticals around the time of freezing in either the system or applications tabs. I saw a critical (red stop sign) for Kernel power after it rebooted without cleanly shutting down, and an event log error (red stop sign) for the system shutting down unexpectedly.

During the first two freezes the video wasn't playing but the sound was, but very very very slowly and when the system 'bounced back' the sound was normal.

Does this help you diagnose at all Tristan/Duane?

I am considering buying new RAM anyways but since it's older DDR2 ram it's pricey now to find it, especially 2-4gb sticks. Have 4 1gb (mad by samsung) sticks currently.

[Diragi]

If the system recovers then I doubt it's hardware... it's probably some software that is going bezerk and hanging:

1. If it hangs ctl-alt-delete to bring up the task manager and sort by CPU; anything at the top?
2. Look at what services you are starting up [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] could be some crapware has added some crap to run
3. Disable Windows Indexing [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[Joyous_Oblivion]

When it hangs ctrl alt del won't work until it unfreezes.

I used the computer for hours after the fatal freeze but didn't open a video player at all and had no issues. I could watch videos through YouTube and Vimeo no problem. Wondering if it's something to do with watching videos because it has locked up with both GOMplayer and VLCplayer.

[Joyous_Oblivion]

Ok so I haven't watched any videos or played any PC games in a couple weeks. I have watched tonnes of videos on youtube and miniwargaming etc though.

I booted up a video in VLC player now and within a minute the computer froze like it had been. That help narrow down what it could be guys? Is there something my computer does different when it watches a video in a 'player' versus being streamed online?

Edit: Checked event viewer and nothing in there around time of crash under system or application tabs.

[Diragi]

Lots of hits on google for this. Seems like there's a corruption somewhere in your computer memory that later causes garbage to be executed by the CPU. Absolute worst type of bug to track down as the source can be anywhere. The good news if this is only an issue with VLC then it's probably not a hardware issue.

Per the following link check the video output method. Try play back with different methods (codecs). If it works on one but not the other then you will probably have to update your video drivers or redownload the codec drivers
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

If that doesn't work try playing the videos on mute and repeat. That could point to audio driver issues (apparently 1/3 of the blue screens in Vista was cased by shite Creative Labs drivers)

If that doesn't work try installing VLC with newer/older versions.

If that doesn't work open your window and eject the PC outside!

[Joyous_Oblivion]

I'll try that tonight, thanks! I know it happened when I was running GOM player too. I'll try running the things you mentioned. Not happy if it's memory though but at least that's a relatively cheap fix to replace memory.

[Diragi]

If the issue with memory is isolated to a few applications then it quite well might not be the physical memory itself but how the individual applications use it.

eg:

Application: windows give me 500 bytes of memory
Windows: ok here is 500 bytes of memory starting at point A
Application: writes 700 bytes at point A (because programmers made a mistake)
Application: needs info at A+500; crashes because the first 200 byes is garbage.

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