Computer Help

[Richy04]

Hopefully someone can pinpoint this:

My Toshiba laptop (win xp home) started freezing on me. The mouse would freeze and no keys or anything would work, no control alt delete etc. I could only reboot and anywhere from 15 seconds to about 3 minutes after startup it would freeze again.

I tried cleaning the system,cookies,etc. I tried running a virus program from DOS etc.. Is there anything anyone could recommend or maybe something to look at?

I didnt load any new programs or add or change anything. If you have any experience or ideas, I am all ears.. Tnx Richy

[offroadkarter]

Hopefully someone can pinpoint this:

My Toshiba laptop (win xp home) started freezing on me. The mouse would freeze and no keys or anything would work, no control alt delete etc. I could only reboot and anywhere from 15 seconds to about 3 minutes after startup it would freeze again.

I tried cleaning the system,cookies,etc. I tried running a virus program from DOS etc.. Is there anything anyone could recommend or maybe something to look at?

I didnt load any new programs or add or change anything. If you have any experience or ideas, I am all ears.. Tnx Richy


Well, as a last resort, might have to reformat. I cant think of anything other than a really bad virus or something that could cause that.

Either that, or your laptop is on its way south.

[FordNut]

Do you have your recovery CD? I've had two different laptops running XP Pro that had to have the OS completely reloaded. Microsoft stinks.

[MM2004]

Anything in the event log?

Run chkdsk -r then defrag for a start.

How old is the machine?

Mike.

[Breadfan]

How many programs are running in task mgr? If it's an OS problem a reload will solve it but isn't always necessary, it just depends on how much cleanup work you want to do - assuming that's even the problem.

It could be a heat problem. Is the fan functioning? Try running it outdoors in the cold and see if it stays up longer. Overheating can cause crashes. So can some other hardware related things - most are diagnosible ---- is that a word?? :)

Just as a point of reference my old Toshiba had head related lockup problems due to dust clogging the heatsink and fan. I took it apart and cleaned it, and found a very poor thermal interface in use and the heatsink itself was very uneven and never made very good contact. I lapped it (sanded/polished the bottom smooth and flat) and used a high quality thermal grease and never had a problem again.

[Richy04]

The machine is 2 years old.. It just started the other day. It locks up, no notification of a worm or virus in the virus protection software. I've tried a few things but no luck. It still locks up (no blue screen of death) it just freezes.

Can I reload the xp without losing my porn.. er.. stuff?? :-)

[Breadfan]

Heat or memory (RAM) problem most likely.

May also be a software or driver issue but as you said you didn't add anything new.

Viruses and worms don't just lock up your computer for fun, they did that back in the days where the Internet was fun and full of pranksters more than theives. Nowadays the net has plenty of scum and societal scourges and they're viruses and worms just steal your identiy or turn your comp into a spam relay or DDOS bot.

[Richy04]

I dont suspect heat as I tried it in my house and then moved it to my cold garage and the thing will boot and then lock up anywhere from 15 seconds to 2-3 minutes (its pretty random). But seems to be other than heat related.

I will check out the ram issue, maybe remove an reinstall or remove one module and replace it with the other.. etc..

[dohc324ci]

Try booting into safe mode first, if you can do that probably not hardware related (to do this hit f8 on bootup). If it does lockup then remove one memory module then boot up and see if problem continues; if it does replace with the other module if the problem continues you can rule out the memory if the problem goes away then it is that memory module.

A few questions:
Did you install any new hardware or software? Is your antivirus up to date with the latest definitions? Do you have any peer to peer software (limewire). I would only restore from the recovery cd as a last resort.

[Aren Jay]

Microsoft OS's slowly die with constant use.

They get full of changes and crap and need to be redone.

Save everything you want and put it on an external drive or burn to a cd/dvd. Get your email adresses exported as a txt file. Save your favourites.

Write down your internet server info. Email servers etc...

Check for your windows serial number (control panel, System ) write down the numbers if you don't have your stickers.

Check to make sure ti is all there and works.

then make a Win98 boot disk and format your system.

You may need to go into the BIOS, if it is password protected you might need a Password breaker or have to make one. Not very hard to make.

Look around for info.

It fits on the parallel port (printer port). It kills all passwords on toshiba notebooks.

[Marauderjack]

Hopefully someone can pinpoint this:

My Toshiba laptop (win xp home) started freezing on me. The mouse would freeze and no keys or anything would work, no control alt delete etc. I could only reboot and anywhere from 15 seconds to about 3 minutes after startup it would freeze again.

I tried cleaning the system,cookies,etc. I tried running a virus program from DOS etc.. Is there anything anyone could recommend or maybe something to look at?

I didnt load any new programs or add or change anything. If you have any experience or ideas, I am all ears.. Tnx Richy

Richy,

Before you do the restore try CCleaner-Free....It has worked wonders for me when the registry becomes loaded down with crap!!!:beer:

Go here and download "Latest Version".....run it and see?? :bows:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Good Luck!!

Marauderjack:burnout:

[CRUZTAKER]

When mine goofed heere a few weeks back, I tried the ccleaner, and also found this nice registry cleaner. A bad registry entry can wreak havoc as well.

Get REGCURE here:
http://www.fix-pc-errors.com/new.htm

PM me for a user key, I believe I have two more slots left if your'e interested.

Good luck!

[magindat]

I'm with Breadfan in this one. It sounds hardware related to me. Heat will do it. So will RAM as will a bad sector on the HDD. If your HDD has a bad sector in the area designated for swap (virtual memory) file, it'll crash every time swap tries to use that sector.

As above, run check disk. It'll ID the bad sector for swap to avoid.

[ckadiddle]

I'm with Breadfan in this one. It sounds hardware related to me. Heat will do it. So will RAM as will a bad sector on the HDD. If your HDD has a bad sector in the area designated for swap (virtual memory) file, it'll crash every time swap tries to use that sector.

As above, run check disk. It'll ID the bad sector for swap to avoid.
Dittos on the above. Won't hurt to reseat the RAM and unplug/replug hard disk connectors while you are already cussing at it. If you look at bottom and give us the specific model number then we can google for known problems with that model also.

Also, have you recently:
Added a new printer?
Connected a new flash/usb drive?
Connected a new digital camera or webcam?


My bote is hard disk or ram going bad or not connecting properly.

[Breadfan]

It it locked up due to heat and you took it outside and still locked up that doesn't mean it wasn't still hot. How hot is the underside?

If the heatsink and fan are clogged it will never cool properly even in cold. Colder ambient temps will help a marginal cooling system, leave it off and outside say in an unheated garage for a few hours then run it outside it may run longer doing it this way.

Also look for motherboard monitor (MBM) online the cpu will have a thermal monitor in the die and though some OEM machines disable the ability to read I bet MBM or another temp monitor will be able to fetch it - this will tell what the core of the cpu is running at temp-wise.

I agree software or registry bugs could casue the problem but contrary to popular believe Windows XP and other NT based OS'es are pretty stable if a program does fail it takes alot to bring the entire OS down with it due to a protected memory architecture.

You can create a boot CD with a program called memtest86 to check the memory integrity. Checking to reseat the modules isn't a bad idea but they're probably ok unless one has jarred loose just a tad.

Also check again how many processes are running after you bootup and it's done laoding everything, do a ctrl-alt-del and click processes and just get the number of running processes. A basic install and an efficiently configured workstation will have 26-35 processes running, a bogged down machine with tons of background processes and worms/spyware can have 50+

[dohc324ci]

Rich,

First thing is first; to make life easier for you narrow down what you are trouble shooting first (hardware or software). Hardware is the easiest to trouble shoot software is a different story. So before you run anything else do the following.

If it is hardware then it will freeze up weather your in the Bios or in Windows. Try going into your Bios there may be some utilities that can check your hard drive and memory. If you are able to

[Aren Jay]

Notebooks are not desktops.

Having worked on literally hundreds of Toshiba Notebooks, lockups are usually Software related. If it is hardware you are basically screwed unless it is a dust clogging problem or a non operational fan. And unless you have access to notebook fans your screwed.

Cleaning your registry will help, or it will kill your system.

Having a virus will do similar things and can even prevent you from cleaning the virus out. Best thing to do is get an updated Anti Virus programme.

The easiest thing to do is back up, format.

Turn the computer off, un plug and take the battery out, before reloading windows make sure nothing is hiding on your system.

Then reload windows. Everything will run faster.

Then determine if it is a Hardware problem.

Run it with just windows and if it keep dying you will have a good idea that it is hardware.

Turn off your Virtual memory.

This will eliminate possible bad sectors on your HDD with problems in Virtual memory.

Setup some Bios related fan and heat detections and alarms. Check your bios every 10 minutes for an hour or two, see how the heat is.

Then load your Anti Virus. Update your Anti Virus.

Run it and scan the computer.

Then load the windows updates.

Then Scan your back up.

Then bring your system back, killing any infected files should you have any.

Then everything will either be back up and running, or you will have found the problem, or you still have a problem and depending on your skill level, Most likely you will be replacing your notebook.

You will have your back up, so you should be fine.

[Dan19063]

Sounds like your hard drive may be going bad