Win2000 Hard Lockups Constantly, No Reason

As I recall, a 2 weeks ago I had no problems. Over the past few days, my lockups are getting worse. I had 10 of them over 4 hours last night.

No hardware changes at all.
No EventLog entries.
It is a complete lockup, no BSOD, just frozen.

I deleted some old files from my /<usr>/<localsettings>/Temp
folder a few days ago, maybe this is the culprit? My IE stopped viewing source and allowing me to download from web pages until I moved my TempInternet files to another location, and now it works. Perhaps I deleted something Temporarily important?

It occurs even with only my IE loaded, but it locks up in other apps like Front Page as well. It ONLY locks up when I click on something, either changing windows, scrolling the web page, clicking "Save" button, etc...If it sits there idle it does not lock up.

I have watched MBM when it locks up and VCore is fine, all readings are fine, including Temp. This happens with 0 overclocking on CPU and video, so it is not stressed, I'm simply pressing a buttons that are very "low-stress" actions.

System Stats:

Abit SD7-533 (2 months old, worked fine)
Intel P4 1.8a (2 months old, worked fine)
512Meg Corsair 2100 (2 months old, worked fine)
Gainward GeForce Ti200 (1 month old, worked fine)
ATI Xpert 128 (1 year old)
Maxtor 40 Gig (1 year old)
WD 60 Gig (3 months old)

Please help so I can go back to developing without fear of loosing work!

Thanks so much,
Stefan

Try updating your drivers for your hardware and Windows.

You have SP2 installed, and all updates that follow it?

I have the latest drivers/service packs/etc for everything.

I only installed Windows2000 less than 2 months ago and the first thing I always do when freshly installing a system is get all Windows updates, service packs, security fixes, etc.

I never install device drivers from the original CD, I always download the newest driver from the web site.

As I said, up until just a few days ago the system was perfect. I can still sit well at 133 FSB and excellent OC on the GeF3. This problem affects me both at total stock settings and at OC'ed settings.

I have been putting about 1.71 - 1.8 Vcore through the Northwood 1.8a, max temp at about 44C. I doubt this would have burned the chip up, eh? I'm assuming it would either work or not if it was screwed up.

To show how weird it is, I am currently running Diskeeper on it now for over an hour defragging with no problems. I have no problems because I am not touching it. The system is being taxed heavily, as the temp is at 44C when Idle is about 32C (with full OC), so it has nothing to do with temps, volts, or anything else.

Earlier when I first started it I went to look at a web page and the pointing and clicking locked me up during defrag, causing me to loose about 11 megs worth of data that was being moved (according to scandisk). I can't touch it until it is finished Diskeeping...

I am thinking maybe a video card conflict, since almost every time I am doing something to lock it up, it is something that will change what is on the display (scrolling, switching IE tasks, etc)

Looking at my IRQ's, IRQ 11 is being shared between my AGP, Layla Audio system and my Network card I believe. I moved the Xpert PCI to another slot because it was sharing as well.

Either that or I screwed something up by manually flushing my Temp folder..is this possible?

Again, let me state that this is a NEW problem, the system was fine for nearly 2 months until this started a few days ago.

It might be do to ACPI. I had a similar problem a bit ago, it would just randomly lock up. I couldn't figure out a patern for it, sometimes I could play a game for 2 hours before it locked up and others it would do it right after I got to the desktop. I installed Windows with a standard kernel instead of the ACPI one and haven't had any problems since.

But its a new problem so I'm doubting thats the reason.

So yours always did that until you installed a standard Kernel, or it started doing it from nowhere?

Sounds like something is wrong with the GUI files.

You had might as well be prepared for a re-format. I have all of my stuff backed up on discs already, so I may have to burn, maybe, 20 or so megs of "new" data on my CD-RWs before a reformat.

This way, my computer could explode, and I wouldn't be ****ed because I lost data... I'd be ****ed at whoever made my machine blow up.

just a stab: are you using any type of "CPU cooling" software like cpuidle, or a hack on the 2k use of the hlt cmd, cause those can lock 2k up something like u described

I use Motherboard Monitor only

Well I thought I might have had it worked out, it hadn't locked up in a while and I was burning backup cd's...it locked up about 50% through the 2nd CD...

stefanb said:

So yours always did that until you installed a standard Kernel, or it started doing it from nowhere?

Click to expand...

The first time I got it I'm pretty sure it started from nowhere. Each time since it started from the install.

Have you run a Virus check with an updated AntiVirus program? You never know...

Yes I ran an AV yesterday...nothing...

I have backed up my whole system and I will probably re-format tonight.

I didn't care much for the way it was set up with the partitions anyway..I ended up adding a 60 gig after my last install so my silly 10/10/20 partitioned 40 gig needs to be 20/20 to keep my drive number lower and my system drive with plenty of space...10 gigs is way too small. I've been installing proggies to all the other drives cause it is so full.

this same thing was happening to me at the beginning of the year, and i think i might have had a few midly bad sectors.

it took a reformat, but that solved my problems. the reason i knew it was the hard drive was because the same thing happened in linux when that was the only thing on my hard drive. (i deleted windows, installed linux where windows had been, and wala, same problems). did a hardcore format the problems were gone.

hope it doesn't come down to that...you might be able to get a utility from your hard drive manufacturer's website to check for hard drive errors.

jeff

run memtest for a few hours to see if your RAM is alright

stefanb said:

Looking at my IRQ's, IRQ 11 is being shared between my AGP, Layla Audio system and my Network card I believe. I moved the Xpert PCI to another slot because it was sharing as well.

Click to expand...

so u dont have video and sound on same irq anymore
cause the only time u can share an irq is 2 devices that are never working at the same time if your sound and video are on the same irq that might be the reason for the lock ups

Yes, sharing the IRQ still..though the sound card is never in use when it locks up.

Right before I was going for the reformat, I was in my dual-booted WinME and it froze as well.

Pulled all cards out and time for testing...crap, I would have much rather just formatted...

Ok No lockups yet and I just added my 2nd vid card (all cards are now back in)...

Linksys 10/100 - IRQ 11
Nvidia GF3 ti 200 - IRQ 11
ATI Xpert 128 - IRQ 7
Echo Layla Audio - IRQ 11

All memory ranges and i/o ranges are seperated, none appear to be overlapping. If this doesn't work I will specify the IRQ's for the slots in the BIOS.