What can cause freezing in XP?

[jimflint1]

I had recently installed two extra hard drives, which seemed to be working, and then all of a sudden, I start getting lockups with my system. Since during part of it, the monitor went kind of dim, I'm thinking I may have too much power use for the wattage of the power supply. Is what I'm describing possible from a lack of power, or would things just cease to work altogether?

 

[brucethetech]

are they external powered drives or internal drives?

 

[jimflint1]

Internal drives.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Is what I'm describing possible from a lack of power

Nah...unless the power outlet that you're monitor is plugged into is failing, since the monitor doesn't draw any power from the powersupply...

Did you just have files and stuff on the harddrive?
Do you think there is a virus possibility?

 

[Archean]

I have never heard of any Viruses which can cause 'screen dimming'. Jim, can you please go to control panel, Administrative tools and then to event viewer. Look for Red/Yellow tagged event logs and see what they are saying, this may help us in determining the root of this problem. Regards

 

[jimflint1]

Nothing tagged in Event Viewer. I may have just imagined the screen dimming, because I only thought it happened once. But maybe some more history is in order here. I'm running my old pc-maybe it's 5-7 years old with XP sp3. Until recently I just had an 80 gig hard drive installed, but of course, that was getting full. So installed another 80 gig, and then I had a used 120 that someone gave me. I put the new 80 gig on the same cable as the original 80 gig, and put the 120 on its own cable attached to an i/o controller card. I had a bit of trouble installing the drivers for the controller card, but once that was up and running, all of the drives seemed to be working. That was about a week and a half ago. Now yesterday is when I began having problems with slowing down, freezing, and not completing the boot up or shut down. I tried running my AV in safe mode, but it was going way slower than it should've been and after about 2 hours was only at 16 percent scanned, and that was set on "quick scan". I had also realized that I had not turned off restore points, so I would need to begin that AV scan all over again. I have run ccleaner. I have run malwarebytes which found nothing. My current power supply is 350 watts, which is why I'm thinking that may be the culprit, but I'd like to rule out other things first, before buying a new one.

 

[Leeky]

350w in my opinion should be adequate for powering a PC several years old, with 3 hard drives, as its unlikely they'll all be spinning at the same time in most instances anyway. That said, even with them doing so, your power supply should easily be able to cope.

Have you installed any new programs recently?

How are the system temps? You don't have a fan playing up do you? If it gets too hot its going to slow down.

If it was me I would be removing the items you have recently fitted and then testing it to see how it is. Assuming your virus, and malware free of course.

Others might be able to advise you better though, as although I do build and mess with computers, I don't know as much as some of the frankly much more experienced users on here.

 

[jimflint1]

Temps - MB 29 C 84 F
CPU 49 C 120 F
2 hard drives running at 35 C 95 F

The third drive is no longer running because when I went back to a restore point, it was prior to the driver installation for the expansion controller card. I do have one fan that isn't working--the one on the rear of the case. The fan that blows directly on the MB from the side of the case is definitely working. I'll need to check the CPU fan here in a few minutes.

 

[Archean]

Temperature for CPU is bit higher (if its idle) however others seems reasonable enough.

Can you take out that additional controller card you placed in your system and disconnect hdd attached to it, if your system stays stable without any issues, then you'll know you have either of two issues i.e. 1. the controller card itself or 2. drivers for the controller card.

 

[jimflint1]

Temperature for CPU is bit higher (if its idle) however others seems reasonable enough.

Can you take out that additional controller card you placed in your system and disconnect hdd attached to it, if your system stays stable without any issues, then you'll know you have either of two issues i.e. 1. the controller card itself or 2. drivers for the controller card.

Yeah, I'll give that a shot. I'm having no difficulty whatsoever with surfing the net, so whatever it is, isn't affecting that...I'll take out that card later--even though the driver has stopped working due to the restore point---and see what happens, then post back.

 

[jimflint1]

Okay, I haven't yet removed the controller card and hard drive, but here's what I tried earlier today. I turned off Restore Points, booted into Safe Mode and started my AV program. All seemed to be going well, so I left that on and went to some appointments I had (doctor etc.). When I returned, all was not well I had this on the screen:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

Kernel_Stack_Inpage_Error

Then a bunch of stuff that basically said, If this screen appears again, disable or remove any newly installed hardware

After that it said:

Technical Info

STOP: 0x0000007 (0xC000000E, 0xC000000E,0x00000001,0x00087000)

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete

So, after I read that, I pressed the restart button and eventually got a black screen that said: Disk boot failure, insert system disk. Press Enter

Which I did and Windows booted normally. Does this ring any bells with anyone?

 

[jimflint1]

And now after I left the room and came back, the blue screen of death has returned and with it, some new numbers:

0x0000007A (0xC03DD590, 0x000000E, 0xF756450C, 0x34529860)

and a new additional message: Atapi.sys - Address F756450C base at F7557000 Datestamp 4802539d

So, as Archean recommended, I've removed that controller card and the hard drive attached to it. Just waiting to see if the blue screen comes back now.

 

[jimflint1]

Update. I've turned off the pc and restarted three times now with no hanging at either end. It seems that the new hardware was the problem. Now the question is, how can I get that extra hard drive up and running without problems?

 

[Leeky]

What interface are the disks? sata or pata?

So I can further understand, are you using the controller card because you can't connect them to the motherboard due to lack of connectors?

 

[Archean]

Which controller card are you using (as it may need some sort of additional settings etc. to work properly) ?

Please disconnect one of your hard drives (obviously the one without OS), and attach new hard drive on that port and see whether that works out.

If the hard drive works ok, you will probably need to replace your controller card (as its new, it should have some sort of warranty arrangement).

 

[jimflint1]

What interface are the disks? sata or pata?

So I can further understand, are you using the controller card because you can't connect them to the motherboard due to lack of connectors?

sata ide -- although I think the extra one that was having trouble (don't know yet if it was the drive or the controller card--was a scsi--at least, in hardware manager somewhere when it was detected it showed up as such. And yes, I'm using the controller card due to all connectors from the MB being in use.

 

[jimflint1]

Which controller card are you using (as it may need some sort of additional settings etc. to work properly) ?

Please disconnect one of your hard drives (obviously the one without OS), and attach new hard drive on that port and see whether that works out.

If the hard drive works ok, you will probably need to replace your controller card (as its new, it should have some sort of warranty arrangement).

Creative I/O Ultra ATA IDE Controller Card-- P/N:SY-PCI45004 is the card. I will try as you suggest and see if the drive will worked hooked up on the same cable as the drive with the OS. Then at least I will know if it's the drive or the card. Could there possibly be an IRQ conflict having to do with the card, and the card itself isn't faulty?

 

[Archean]

I don't think so, its very rare to have such IRQ issues. But if you want to be sure, Right click on my computer, then go to hardware tab, then click on device manager, and scroll down to locate your controller card, if there is a yellow escalation mark is shown along side it, it means there is some issues.

You can further investigate by right clicking on the listed entry of that card, and go to properties and have a look through various options.

 

[jimflint1]

Thanks. I had the day off yesterday, and no time for the next few, so I will get back to this thread in a few days to post my update on what happened.