A helping hand

jaggy

jaggy

Geek Trainee
Hello, fellow HF members. I am working on a friends computer that needs a few tweaks to work right. Any imput is greatly appreciated.

The machine is a Gateway, however, not a bad one. Here are some specs:

Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz CPU
x86 Chipset
3.00GB DDR2
8500GT GPU
400W PSU
SATA HDD

Windows Vista 32-bit (yes, I know we all hate Vista)

My friends problems are generally random freezing, particularly around UAC security checks. I've turned UAC off, for the time being, however; the problems continue in other areas of operation.

I've taken several actions to fix this that include:
-Format & Rinstall
-Replaced HDD & Reinstall
-Updated Chipset Drivers

The system is behaving better but I still get random freezing. The mouse pointer is active durring those freezes but it's the only thing that's active.

If any of you have any suggestions please post.
Thanks!
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Post Count:
Post # - 74
 
Perhaps bad RAM?
Have you tried running the PC with one stick of memory at a time?
I am assuming the 3GB is made of three sticks of 1GB. So you should be able to run Vista with 1GB.

Worth a shot....
 
Thanks, will try it. Haven't looked into the RAM that much tho.. There are 4 sticks, but I didn't feel like taking all of them out to see what sized dimms they were. Perhaps I will try one of my 1gb sticks and then narrow down the bad one.
Thanks for the advice!

More always welcome.
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Post Count:
Post # - 75
 
Any component could be at fault here. It might also be a softawre issue.

Regarding the RAM - It is always harder to tell when you have more than one stick....
Even when running memtest, it will not show you in which stick you have the issue. Therefore, the only way to exclude RAM is to start stick by stick (on its own, obviously) and see which (if any.... :dry:) causes the freeze.

Saying all that - in windows (in a lot of cases) RAm issue result in BSOD's so the fact that you did not get any make me think that perhas RAM is not to blame. Alas, the only way to test this thoroughly is by doing as I suggested...

Good luck...
 
Thanks again for the comments.
-All RAM checks out.
-Went into msconfig, disabled startup items. Running 23 minutes. No freeze.

The guy plays online poker, so I can see how a software issue is probable here. Will run a few more tests and benches.

The problem is that everything in the Startup Items list is legitimate.
-Some System Services have changed from running to stopped but I can't keep track of which are which.

I'll have to go through the "stopped" services and google ones I dodn't know. It'll be a long night...
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Post Count:
Post # - 76
 
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