Lockup advice

[evil]

Ok.. I been experiencing some strange lockups on my comp yesterday, and I'm not sure what might be causing it. My comp freezes in the middle of something, anything. After that it may or may not boot when I reset it. If it doesn't boot, it hangs before anything at all is displayed. It may sound the normal startup beep. It's not a software problem, it's frozen while looking at things in the BIOS setup as well.
At first sight it looks like an overheating problem. If I have it turned off for a little while, it works again, until the next time it decides to freeze up. But I cannot find anything that might be overheating. CPU (AMD64 3700+) is nice and cool, all fans are working, and at acceptable RPMs as far as the BIOS can monitor them, can't find anything that's hot to touch.

I've unplugged everything that could be unplugged - sound card (Live! 5.1), video card (GeForce 6800), HDD, disk drive, DVD drive, memory modules, etc, none of this helped. I don't believe it's the CPU - I can still turn the PC on by pressing a key on the keyboard (at least I am pretty sure the CPU is needed for this) when it's busy locking up all the time.
It leaves only 2 components that might be defective: the PSU (Antec 550) or the mainboard (Gigabyte K8NSNXP). I am suspecting it's the mainboard, a few times when it wouldn't boot it kept reinitializing my DVD drive repeatedly (it makes a little sound). It didn't do this when the drive was connected only to the PSU and not the mainboard. But maybe I overlooked something. As far as I can tell, the mainboard is working fine.

Looks like I'll have to replace something, but not entirely sure what yet. Any hints? Thanks =D

 

[wireframe]

I would give the PSU the evil and suspicious eye. Do you have a voltage monitoring tool for your mainboard? If so, look to see if your voltages are correct and not fluctuating.

If you don't have such a tool supplied with your hardware, one can be found here or perhaps as a download at your mainboard manufacturer's site. Normally you can also monitor these values in the BIOS, but you really want a software that averages and maps out these values over a period of time.

Is this a new rig? Has it been running well up until recently?

 

[digitalwanderer]

I was gonna ask when the last time you dusted it was, my rig starts locking up if I don't keep her clean.

 

[_xxx_]

Try using MBM to see how temps etc. behave. It takes just seconds for temps to rise/fall, so you may as well just be missing when it occurs. Definitely sounds like a heat problem or dust. Mobo is not very probable, although as well possible.

 

[evil]

I was gonna ask when the last time you dusted it was, my rig starts locking up if I don't keep her clean.

Well... I just did that yesterday... and so far it's holding *crosses fingers*

It wasn't that dusty... but it appears to have been the problem anyway...none of my comps has locked up due to being dusty (and I've seen some really bad ones =D) before so wasn't the first thing that came to mind ;o


Thanks for advice =)

 

[digitalwanderer]

How dusty it can be is really system dependant. My wife's old 1.4 Tuly can be almost blanketed in dust inside and still run fine, if my rig gets even slightly visibly dusty it gets unstable.

Hope it works, crossing me fingers too.

 

[evil]

Well it worked fine for a week, now it's doing the lockup thing again. I am still not sure what is causing the problem. Voltage readings appear stable. It's definitely not an overheating problem. Can't find any more dust ;p
I think the biggest clue is my DVD drive. It's acting funny sometimes when I turn the PC on, it repeatedly makes that noise it makes when I eject it (it's one of those without a tray), normally it does this only once on power-on. After a while, the PC will boot normally. It doesn't do this when it's not connected to the IDE port (but is connected to the PSU). Anyone have any insights on what might be causing this particular behaviour?

 

[evil]

Whee, update.
Underclocked the CPU down to 800mhz, no freezes for hours. Back to 2400Mhz, freezing within a few minutes. Looks like it might be the CPU going bad. Or maybe heatsink needs replacing or fresh thermal inferface goo. Can that stuff wear out after a year or so already? Still, CPU temperature and fan speed is fine (according to the BIOS and monitor programs). Well either way there's a new CPU+MB on the way =)

 

[_xxx_]

Whee, update.
Underclocked the CPU down to 800mhz, no freezes for hours. Back to 2400Mhz, freezing within a few minutes. Looks like it might be the CPU going bad. Or maybe heatsink needs replacing or fresh thermal inferface goo. Can that stuff wear out after a year or so already? Still, CPU temperature and fan speed is fine (according to the BIOS and monitor programs). Well either way there's a new CPU+MB on the way =)

Just went through the same hassle this week and it also seems to be the CPU AND the ATAPI-controller (had the same prob with _any_ disk drive I hooked up to the second IDE port). I'll be ordering a new CPU+mobo too...