Diagnosing the freezing PC

[MobileTechie]

I've got one of those annoying PCs in that freezes every now and again, requiring a reboot to get it working again. It might take 2 mins or it might take an hour. I've checked the HDD and the memory and they appear to be fine. Nothing in the logs.

It's a business PC so has very little installed on it - Office and Kaspersky. I've uninstalled Kaspersky.

Given the length of time between freezes and the seemingly random causes of them, it's impossible to replicate the problem reliably. I thought I had it beaten after reinstalling the graphics drivers but then it froze as I was demonstrating it working!

Anyone come up with any clever tips for diagnosing these symptomless freezes?

 

[14049752]

Anyone come up with any clever tips for diagnosing these symptomless freezes?

The freezing IS the symptom.

Anyway, sometimes it only comes down to persistence. I tend to start swapping parts if nothing turns up with normal diagnostics procedures.

 

[xxsilk109xx]

Try new RAM, or PS, that has usually been my experience...

If it locks up when using a boot disk, then its hardware.

If it locks up when in normal mode but not safe mode, then its software..

Have you checked real well for virus/rootkit?

I would first try new ram though....

just my 2 cents

 

[Cambridge PC Support]

I thought I had it beaten after reinstalling the graphics drivers but then it froze as I was demonstrating it working!

Don't you just hate it when that happens - "Here you go sir, all working fine for you." Sqwwwrp. "Oh dear it appears that I'm both an amateur and a liar!"

Last one of those I had was a very dusty 1KW PSU, so popped in a nice shiny new 600W Corsair and all was well. Not that it's much help to you as you've already swapped the PSU.

 

[PC Ops]

I've seen the same thing once. Everything checked out fine. I just couldn't find the cause of the random freezes.

At some point I hooked op the hdd of this laptop to my bench machine and ran some extra tests. Now it frooze MY machine...

So, bad hdd. New hdd in laptop: problem solved. Now, a couple of months later the laptop still runs perfectly.

As I mentioned earlier, I checked out everything including the hdd. SMART was fine, other tests: all good. Never got that

Edit: I know, it's a long shot but worth a try

 

[sassenach]

Have you checked all the temps, especially the GPU and the airflow through the case? Aida64 (used to be Everest) can be a handy tool to have in the arsenal for sneaky problems like this one. http://www.aida64.com/

 

[commodore64]

If youve already tried everything else from the others, try replacing the hard drive, Ive seen hard drives test fine, but still freeze up, tried new drive and no freezing, just a thought.

 

[allanc]

The freezing IS the symptom.

Anyway, sometimes it only comes down to persistence. I tend to start swapping parts if nothing turns up with normal diagnostics procedures.

I had a similar issue very recently and it lasted over a period of many months.
Symptoms: freezing, nothing in error logs, diagnostics run clean, etc.

Diagnosis: User error.
I had never actually seen the computer in the 'frozen' state until one day I went to her office to look at her issue again and noticed that she had two Outlook icons in her taskbar and the computer appeared to be frozen.
She told me that she was impatient and that if Outlook did not start fast enough she would try to start it again (and again).
Another scenario is when she wanted to have two or more specific Emails opened at the same time.
She would start a new copy of Outlook to view the second Email.
She said that she often had more than 5 unique copies of Outlook open at the same time.

I had asked her many times in the past if there was anything in common between the 'freezes' and she said no.

I sat her down and explained that she had to be more patient and that she should only open Outlook once.
I also did some training so that she can now navigate her way in Outlook properly.

The computer has not froze since.

 

[Martyn]

I've got one of those annoying PCs in that freezes every now and again, requiring a reboot to get it working again. It might take 2 mins or it might take an hour. I've checked the HDD and the memory and they appear to be fine. Nothing in the logs.

It's a business PC so has very little installed on it - Office and Kaspersky. I've uninstalled Kaspersky.

Given the length of time between freezes and the seemingly random causes of them, it's impossible to replicate the problem reliably. I thought I had it beaten after reinstalling the graphics drivers but then it froze as I was demonstrating it working!

Anyone come up with any clever tips for diagnosing these symptomless freezes?

Sometimes you have to do things to prove what it isn't. N&p time

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Diagnosis: User error.

I had a little old lady bring me her laptop that kept on "freezing". This laptop was fairly new (<1 year old). After running several tests on the machine that all came back clean I came to the conclusion that she was accidentally disabling her touchpad. I showed her how to re enable it should it happen again.

 

[humberpc]

from my experience, it is either RAM or heat. usually replacing the RAM helps but if not then I check all fans and ensure the case is well ventilated.

there are occasions that PSU is the issue as well, not enough juice perhaps.

 

[LedHed]

This could be the hard drive, but my instincts are leaning toward a heat issue. Check the heat sink and thermal paste.

Also try booting from a live CD to see if the freezing continues. This will tell you if it is a hardware problem.

Andy

 

[parker.casey]

I've got one of those annoying PCs in that freezes every now and again, requiring a reboot to get it working again. It might take 2 mins or it might take an hour. I've checked the HDD and the memory and they appear to be fine. Nothing in the logs.

It's a business PC so has very little installed on it - Office and Kaspersky. I've uninstalled Kaspersky.

Given the length of time between freezes and the seemingly random causes of them, it's impossible to replicate the problem reliably. I thought I had it beaten after reinstalling the graphics drivers but then it froze as I was demonstrating it working!

Anyone come up with any clever tips for diagnosing these symptomless freezes?

Start+Run -> SFC /scannow
Yeah?

 

[MobileTechie]

I was really just wondering if I was missing a trick with these annoying jobs. Doesn't appear so. Everyone has suggested the stuff I already do.

Anyway update - it wasn't fixed at 8:30am on the morning I had to give it back. I'd just updated the last driver using Driver Easy and made the mistake of clicking Shutdown and Install updates instead of just shutdown....cue 50 minute wait as installed a load of updates

I called to say I was gonna be late, that it wasn't fixed and that I'd drop it back to the office and pick it up on Friday PM for work on the weekend.

Anyway since then it's not frozen again! So something amongst the driver updates, SFC and system updates it APPEARS to have gotten fixed. I'm not convinced myself but they're calling it a fix so I will too until informed otherwise. The fact that it's gone this long is a good sign.

 

[CNS]

Freezes

I just came across a HP last week where the boot time on a Win vista with 2 G RAM was booting up way too slow. I did all the basics, disk cleanup, etc. still same thing. I went into Safe Mode and issue was gone. I ran Super Spyware and vualla issue gone. Spyware/Malware being the issue!