Mysterious Trance

[sylvania phone]

I cannot ctr-alt-del.
I cannot reload windows by pressing restart buton on my tower.
I cannot reload windows by pressing shutdown button on my tower.

I can only switch the power supply off in the back of the tower to again boot to windows.

While in this TRANCE (blank screen crash) the hard drive lights in front of the tower are lid up and dont stop. Also the monitor light goes orange, suggesting that it is in sleep or there is no video connection.

About my system, xp and installed software:

msi k7t pro2a
900 thunderbird
2 stick sof 256 pc-133
riva tnt2 model 64
onboard ac97 sound
maxtor 40 ata-100

xp pro was clean instaled on a ntfs formated disk - no partitions...
instaled via 4in-1 driver 1437a (latest)
nvidia detonator 4 latest official driver

since instalation win xp ran fine for 24 hours, then i decided to instal SUBSPACE game (continuum)
and then a couple of minutes into the game, KABLAMO - this mysterious crash

then i uninstaled the game, but it keeps crashing randomly
i don't have to run any software, from boot, if i just leave it alone, it crashes after awhile.

gives me the impresion that it's hardware (cpu overheat ? i checked temps stay under 40celsius)



Sylvania Phone - will crossover to mac if you cannot save me
Montreal, Canada

 

[Speed4Ever]

If you dont believe this to be heat-related, I would seriously suggest that you take it to a computer repair shop near you, and have a professional tech take a look at it. It is definitely hardware related. Could be a bad Motherboard, CPU, Power supply, videocard, something loose, any number of things...

Sorry I cant recommend anything better, but I do think thats the best course of action at this time...

will crossover to mac if you cannot save me

Just so you know, Mac hardware also fails at times...

EDIT: If that doesnt help, with any luck, Jesus will maybe post here his recommendations...

 

[jw50]

From your post it appears that the problem only surfaced after installing a specific program. Since you cant tell for sure if the uninstall actually did uninstall all the files that the program installed I would recommend backing up all your data files, reformat the hard drive, and do a clean install of XP to see if that clears up the problem. If it does then that would indicate that the program you installed caused the problem rather than it being a hardware problem.

 

[H0TK4RL]

I agree... This seems to be the most logical approach to this problem.

-jay

Originally posted by jw50
From your post it appears that the problem only surfaced after installing a specific program. Since you cant tell for sure if the uninstall actually did uninstall all the files that the program installed I would recommend backing up all your data files, reformat the hard drive, and do a clean install of XP to see if that clears up the problem. If it does then that would indicate that the program you installed caused the problem rather than it being a hardware problem.

 

[sylvania phone]

thank you and keep'em coming

it s a freakin subspace game, a couple of megs, 1996 graphics.

i will try the reformat if no other solutions are brought.

i will only take the pc to a shop if I recognize the problem in win2k or win98se, because i had those and they were running fine earlier.

i was kidding about the mac, unless i have 10K to throw around.

Since this happened to me last tiem also before i went back to win2k, i remember now that it happened only after subspace.

Hmm, does anyone recommend partitioning my hard drive to have winxp and win98se ? Any tips as im total noob on that matter. i have partition magic 7.

 

[Speed4Ever]

sylvania phone,

Looking back at your post, I'm guessing I read it backwards .

I percieved as you wrote it, Freezing hardware > Explanation > installed game.

It was kinda late last night when I posted, so I guess I overlooked that.

If the game was a DOS-based game, or otherwise older ('96), it is percievable that its video or sound subsytems may have caused your problems. I have yet to see a DOS game actually cause the symptoms you showed, but that doesnt mean I've seen everything in this world ...

If you have partition magic, go ahead and wipe out your whole drive, make a Fat32 partition at the begining of your drive, but leave room for a NTFS partition on the last half if you wish to reinstall XP in a dual-boot scenario.

Then install WIn98 in that partition. Once Win98 is installed, and you are happy with how its running, go ahead and install XP in the other partition. You can either have PM 7 make the NTFS (or FAT32, your choice I guess), or XP can make the partition. It will recognize the freespace, and allow you to make another partition.

If it works ok in Win98 with the game, then it may not be your hardware.

Post back, I'd be interested in knowing how this pans out.

Later

 

[Goose]

SYSTEM RESTORE

Why dont you try the System Restore
you can restore it back to a day before you installed
the game then you will know if it was the install or not

this worked for me when i was fluffin about with my system

 

[sylvania phone]

it s hardware !!!!

it crashed same way in cadera dos (partition magic boot disk)

and it crashed after i was instaling a new copy of xp after format and partitioning.


I know it's either motherboard, ram sticks or power supply that s the culprit. Iv got my bro who went outha town so i ll experiment with his stuff and let you guys know.

problem: i cant boot up or i cant see the hard drive (as in during boot it s NAME is displayed with crazy characters....)

i tried swtiching ide and power cables, but same response - hard drive name showing off bad and winxp cd cannot detect it then.

im gonna try a coupla things like

1- new power supply
2-move mobo out of case, put over safe anti conductant rubber and try with new and old power supply (might of been silly short circuit)
3 change ram sticks with combinations of above if necessary (problem might be 2 things who know)

ill post the results and im sure someone will know what how.

sylvania phone
montreal canada

 

[sylvania phone]

results

it s not a faulty power supply
it s not faulty ram sticks

it s SILLY short circuit with mobo and maxtor hard disk

mobo= u know your mouse and keyboard ports and usb and serial. know teh metal plate around them, i had to remove it - silly

hard disk= my enermax power supply has 3 power cords with 3 plugs each. i have to give ONE full plug alone to my hd or it wont work - silly thing no one would of guessed in a million years.

it works right now flawlessly - WELL i have my toer in pieces and power supply outside with tower on teh side and nothign screed in. im afraid if i change anything to the mess it stops working..im gonna leave it like that...


tank you for all help