My computer kept freezing, so I recently restored the computer, hoping to erase what I thought was the problem. That was a day or two ago, and I use I use Lavasoft Ad-Aware & CW-Shredder, to make sure my computer is squeaky clean and it still freezes! Do you have any ideas?

You may have a hardware problem- particularly a faulty power supply

could you elaborate

I read a couple of threads, and kept hearing that extreme heat may be the cause of the problem. So I took my tower out of the little cubby in the desk and set it on the floor, allowing it to breathe a little bit. Now it does help somewhat, the computer doesn't freeze as much, but it still does every now and then. I also started to turn the computer off, when no one was using it to help cool it down. Anyone have nay suggestions as to why it could still be freezing? By the way if I have a faulty power supply what exactly does that mean?

Extreme temperature and humidity might have an effect on your hardware. Too much/too little humidity can cause electrostatic discharge or condensation, which is harmful to your computer. Safe humidity: 50-80 percent.


Basically, anything "faulty" is anything that does not operate properly

In your case, you MAY have a minor problem, where the power supply does not provide constant voltage, causing lockups/freezes.

Some serious faulty power supply problems may include damage to the drives/boards or even killing the whole computer.


I suggest you take your computer in for a check-up.

Odd

Ok I have the exact same problem on exactly the same computer. Very ODD.....................

Power supply get it checked .. This is always the first place to check..Have you installed and new drivers or software lately?

Motherboard??

I just went through the same ordeal with my Presario 5000. I replaced memory, processor and hard drive. The final outcome to fix it was the motherboard. Seems there is a weak point on these boards.

What is the processor on these motherboards that are freezing up?

AMD Athlon 1GhZ this one has.

I had a friend I thought I would do a favor and look at his presario 5000 for this same problem. After freezing up several times and then not coming back on, I replaced the motherboard.

The board I replaced it with came with a AMD Duron. It came up for about a minute and then the processor popped and smoked.

Presario UWAVE motherboard with AMD Athlon 1 GHz

Hello,

I have a Compaq Presario 5WV295 with Windows ME.
The first thing this PC did was crashing during the initial startup.
So i had to restore it from the factory files.

After some time the system became more or less stable.
This however lasted only 1 year.
In that year i have thrown away the unstable SOUNDMAX sound driver and i have replaced it by an older version of a VIA AC97 sound driver (download from www.viaarena.com).
After that period the system started to freeze frequently with no reason, even in BIOS setup.
I have been struggeling for more than 3 years now to find the problem.
I installed Windows XP Professional, dual boot with Windows ME.
I have applied all updates and removed all virusses and spyware.

Conclusion:
The freezing is hardware related, since the BIOS setup, Windows ME and also Windows XP are freezing randomly.
I found that freezing was NOT caused by:
- The harddisk (i use a different one now).
- The 250 Watt power supply (exchanged by a 350 Watt ATX).
- The NVidia Riva 64, 32 MB video card (exchanged also).
- The memory SIMMS
- The cabling (mainly IDE cables for 2 harddisks and DVD/CD-ROM drives.
- The modem (removed)
- The LAN card (replaced)

I noticed that the AMD processor has a little damage at the corner of the core. This could cause problems, especially with the cooling.
I have remounted the processor and applied cooling pasta not only at the surface, but also a little around the edges of the processor core.
I tested a short time without a running cooling fan.
So the cooler became very hot, but the Presario did not freeze during this test. So the processor is NOT the problem.

This leaves the UWAVE (= modified FIC AZ31) motherboard as the only suspected item.

Finally i removed the motherboard again and gave it a very close inspection.
Nothing seemed to be wrong. All soldering looked very solid and nice.
However i have learned my lessons over the years. So i took a soldering iron and resoldered the power supply items on the motherboard, near the processor: the coils, the big capacitors, and the power transistors. I also renewed the soldering of the powersupply connector and IDE connectors at the motherboard.

It appeared that several pins of the powerconnector and some parts of the power supply for the AMD processor were were not soldered correctly (cold solderings). You will need a good soldering iron to apply anough heat for good soldering.

So the final conclusion is that the freezing was caused by bad solderings of the power parts at the UWAVE motherboard. Very bad Compaq quality! :dead: Now, for the first time in years, the Presario can run the whole day without any problem! But, unfortunately, it still freezes sometimes!

I hope this story can help others, who have also an unstable Compaq Presario 5000.

Regards, GSM

Open up the case and start up the computer. Use a flashlight and look at all the fans. Make sure they are all turning.

Poor airflow

All fans are running (PSU and processor) but the airflow through the case is poor and even very poor around the option boards. That's why a video card with its own fan would be better to avoid overheating of the video processor. The videocard in my PC has no fan of its own. I am testing now with a little fan that blows cool air directly to the heatsink on the NVIDIA processor.

Regards,
GSM

Not so sure anymore...

Today the computer was freezing again, after a few days of perfect operation, and it never could be started anymore. No video at all but the power looks okay. Hard disks and fans are running but the disks are not accessed.
So i took out the motherboard and installed it again.
No way to start the PC, until i pressed accidently on one of the twelve big electrolytic capacitors for the AMD Athlon power supply on the motherboard.
Now the :evil: thing runs again like a charm.
I guess this will be a continuing story.., perhaps the "Capacitor plague"?
The 12 big capacitors (1500uF, I.Q. brand) look fine, but still they may the cause of all trouble. These I.Q. capacitors are on the list of known bad capacitors.

Regards,
GSM

Use Cable Select (CS) on both hard disks

This problem often appears after a second hard disk is installed.
The Presario 5000 systems have IDE cables with blue, grey and black connectors, that are intended to use CS.
Connectors: Blue=motherboard, Grey=Slave, Black is Master.
Be sure to use CS (Cable Select) at the hard disk(s), otherwise your system might sometimes refuse to boot or frequently freeze.

Regards, GSM

Reflash the BIOS ROM and check IRQ sharing

The last thing i did to repair the Compaq Presario 5000 (5WV295), was to reflash the latest BIOS version, downloaded from Compaq (HP). Also i did an online scan with some welknown antivirus products. Three viruses, which were never detected before, were now discovered (but i don't think one of them was harmful). However it could be that the BIOS has been altered by some nasty virus!?

I don't know if it is really important, but certain interrupts were shared (Device manager, View: Resources by type, Interrupt requests).
So i went into the BIOS setup (F10 at startup) Advanced tab, PCI-bus settings and then changed the IRQ's (LAN=11, USB=11, Audio=10, VGA=3).

Things look again better now. The Presario is up and running for 12 hours now! So i am a little bit hopeful now that the PC stays alife. :knock:
I am running both ME and XP (two hard disks). XP runs fine, but strange enough, Compaq does not support XP for the 5WV295. :slurp:

Regards,
GSM

Reinstalled XP, with only one hard disk

The Presario was still freezing too often!
Things have now improved again after using only 1 hard disk (Maxtor).
Before i had a combination of WDC Caviar (master) and Maxtor (slave).

I have now deleted all partitions, created 1 new NTFS partition and then reinstalled Windows XP on the Maxtor hard disk.

It seems that the Presario had some difficulties with the WDC/Maxtor combination on the primary IDE port.
It looks as if the BIOS stopped the processor because it detected a fatal problem on the IDE bus with two different drives connected. When the PC was restarted the BIOS often had a problem to redetect the two hard drives and then the BIOS stopped the processor immediately, even before any video output was generated. The Compaq MV740 monitor often stayed dark and was not switched on at all.

Regards,
GSM

Give up

I have tried now all possible solutions, but in the end the Compaq Presario 5WV295 keeps freezing at random intervals.
When the system is freezing, it is always caused by the fact that the 1.6 V power output for the processor from the VRM is missing. This power is lost for a shorter or longer time, but when it comes back the system can be restarted.
Each time anything was changed in the Presario it seemed to be an improvement of the situation, but it appeared to be never a permanent solution.
It is to difficult for me to replace 12 1500uF IQ capacitors of the VRM (1.6 Volt Voltage Regulation Module on the UWAVE motherboard) which might cause all the trouble.
So i give up now. :knock:
I consider the Compaq Presario as a hardware virus that can not be cured.

Regards,
GSM

Solved!! (i hope).

I may have solved the problem (after almost damaging my motherboard with a too hot solder iron). I have used an oscilloscope to trace back the fault.
There is a very nice diagram of the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM), as it is used at the UWAVE motherboard. Just search the internet for the description (PDF format) of the ADP3160 and/or ADP3412 circuits of ANALOG DEVICES.
There are two 8-pin ADP3412 circuits at the motherboard, one of them is located at the left of the ATX power connector.
Below this circuit is one very small transistor (equivalent to a 2N3904).
This transistor caused the Presario to freeze at random intervals.
The transistor sometimes did not supply the VCC (+7 Volt) to pin 4 of the two ADP3412 circuits. This caused the VRM to stop supplying the 1.6 Volt for the Athlon processor.
I have used an ordinary NPN transistor (2N3708) as a replacement and connected it via three thin wires, which were made as short as possible.
It seems to work, my Presario seems to run fine now. :bounce:

Regards,
GSM

Remark:
Though the capacitors of the VRM are I.Q.'s, they still look good after 5 years and they obviously were not the problem.

Hey GSM, a friend of mine has the same problem. Could you maybe write a tutorial and post a place to get the equipment?

The same problem does not always mean the same cause.
You should measure the processor power at the + of the big capacitors.
It is much harder to measure the 7 Volt at pin 4 of the ADP3412, because this is a very small chip. The 2N3904 (SOT-23) is also very small. Please refer to e.g.: http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/2N/2N3904.pdf .

If the processor power drops for a very short time, the processor will be running in a loop and becomes very hot.
My PC has become very reliable after i have replaced transistor Q5 (2N3904). EDIT: This is Q10 at the UWAVE mobo!

For details, please refer to figure 8 in this document: http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets2/0/00jei7y7ezs6uk0didz6ukguu8yy.pdf

It is rather difficult to unsolder the transistor and it is very easy to destroy the motherboard. You could however try to have an equivalent of the 2N3904 transistor (SOT-23 form factor) soldered just on top of the old Q5.

Compaq Presario 5000

This to thank GSM for his brillant troubleshooting. I had a Presario 5WV312 with UWave M/B having the same problem of freezing after a few time. I even could'nt start it at all at the end. So after reading what GSM found, I came to replace the same NPN transistor by an equivalent BC546. Now the PC runs fine. The difficulty is when soldering the transistor wich is very small.
Thank again to GSM for his great work,
Pascous