Could use a little assistance troubleshooting a freeze-up problem with my computer.
The box: HP xw4600 workstation, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4Gb RAM, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 440 video card, Logitech wireless kybd & mouse, Windows Vista.
Problem is that the system intermittently freezes, requiring a cold boot to get started again. When this happens it is locked up solid- no cursor movement via mouse, no kybd input, no HD activity, and it doesn’t unfreeze if left alone (I walked away for 30+ minutes, no change), the clock in the system tray doesn’t increment. When I’m listening to streaming audio the sound freezes as well, repeating the last note rapidly like a stuck CD player.
Some days this won’t occur at all, other days it will freeze a handful of times. Doesn’t seem to matter if earlier or later in the day. There is no new equipment on or near the box, and nothing has been recently moved or removed. The only pattern I’ve been able to identify is that this always happens when I’m in a browser, never when I’m working in a program like Photoshop or running a virus scan, etc. Occurs in Firefox and Chrome browsers (both are current versions). Virus and malware scans are coming back repeatedly clean. I ran MemTest86+ overnight and after 7-1/2 complete passes it found 0 errors. Additionally, I ran Video Memory stress Test and it came back with 0 errors.
At this point I presume it’s a hardware error- CPU or system board or maybe even a power supply hiccup, but I don’t know how to narrow it down further. I don’t have extra components to swap in/out and can’t afford to start buying parts in an attempt to fix it shotgun style. Is there anything Windows is logging where that data would help point to a particular component, or is there some diagnostic program I can load that might capture useful data when it freezes? Thanks for your advice.
It’s frozen a few times more since I posted initially. When I look at event viewer there are no errors at or immediately preceding the time of failure, and there is no pattern of other recorded events that would suggest a consistent, target-able problem.
Any recommendations for some sort of hardware diagnostics that I can have running in the background that might lead me to identify the failing component?
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/…
AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/dow…
(blue Download button near top – not anything else on the page).
Download and “Save” the file somewhere. Go to the saved file then double click it to run the program. Use the “Scan” button, followed by the “Cleaning” button.
Junkware Removal Tool (JRT)
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/dow…
(blue Download button near top – not anything else on the page).
Download and “Save” the file somewhere. Go to the saved file then double click it to run JRT. It might appear to have stopped at times or flash the screen but sit tight until it has finished.
If you haven’t already run this one too:
https://www.malwarebytes.org/downlo…
Download the free version.
Install and Run the program but before doing its Scan go to “Settings > Detection and Protection” and put a checkmark in “Scan for rootkits”. Quarantine anything it finds.
Let us know the outcome for all three and keep all logs if they find anything.
EDIT:
If it’s a hardware fault it is hard to see why it only affects browsers. I assume it sometimes happens even when you are not streaming audio.
Always pop back and let us know the outcome – thanks
message edited by Derek