Trying to Salvage my old DAW

ChuckU

ChuckU

New member
I am retiring my old DAW, but when I last used it for recording it was still viable. For some reason now, when I use it for day to day use, it will reboot itself for no apparent reason. It is a 1GHZ P3 running Windows XP. I have 3 sticks of RAM (pc133). Two of them are 128mb, one is 256. I have run the machine with one, two and three sticks in and every combination thereof and it will still do the reboot thing. I think that eliminates the question of a RAM problem as I doubt all three sticks are bad. It will reboot whether I am online or not. One way to virtually guarantee a reboot is if I try to print something across our wireless networt (this machine is hardwired to the printer so it must be on to print from the wireless laptop). I have removed the HD and put it in a USB drive enclosure. I ran a virus scan and a defrag with no problems reported (a few cookies were removed during virus scan) and there is 20% free space on the 40GB HD. When the system does its reboot, the light blue screen comes up and does checkdisk. sometimes it doesn't get all the way through it and reboots again. Once it does get going, I can surf on it for a bit, but it will inevitably crash & reboot itself. So my question is, is it the HD, Mobo, reload Windows, other?
 
Is it getting hot? My POS that I record on is old...and it started doing random reboots. I took the side case off, found nothing loose, and it quit. I had left the side off so I could check stuff. I then noticed the fan on the power supply is not working. I'm figuring mine is heat related, as it hasn't shut down for quite some time now with the case open.
 
Ok so I know whats in your computer.

First, when's the last time you have used it?
Did you leave it plugged in.

Before actually troubleshooting it, I believe that it may have a couple bad sectors on the hard drive. But also I second it overheating. Check those parts before moving on and checking anything else.
 
Something in your power supply, or possible with the line voltage it is plugged into....
 
Mindset said:
Ok so I know whats in your computer.

First, when's the last time you have used it?
Did you leave it plugged in.

Before actually troubleshooting it, I believe that it may have a couple bad sectors on the hard drive. But also I second it overheating. Check those parts before moving on and checking anything else.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's overheating. I took the side panel off and never put it back on. CPU fan is blowing as is power supply fan. Clock is keeping time so I don't think it's the MOBO battery. Unfortunately, I am leaning toward the bad sector scenario. I don't suspect reloading Windows will help this.
 
Other options:

1.) Inspect the inside of the case for any loose connections.

2.) Clean out the accumulated dust inside.

3.) Unplug, or take out one component out at a time and reboot to see if there is any change, like the sound card, network card, etc., things the computer doesn't rely on to operate. Also unplug the floppy driv, CD rom drive, DVD drive, etc. Each time you do this to a component, reboot and check to see if the problem goes away.

If the problem still exists, consider a fresh reinstall of the OS. I know some people have a hard time considering doing this because they don't want to have to reinstall drivers, programs, files, etc., but if that is not a real issue, then try that.I personally think the fresh reinstall might be the way to fix the problem.

If you do a reinstall, unplug/remove all unnecessary components. Do the reinstall and see if the problem is fixed, then add/connect one component at a time, restart, and see where you are at that point.

And yes, it is possible that the hard drive may have a bad or bad sectors. Sometimes these problems can be fixed, sometimes they are permanent, and this can cause exactly the problem you are describing.

Computers can be very strange, each one seems to have its own personality of problems. I have seen, time and time again, computers that won't function properly if the sound card or network card is damaged. Sometimes a card is loose in it's slot, and that causes problems. I have seen a bad hard drives cause different kinds of problems seemingly unrelated to the problem at hand, but come to find out, that was the problem.

I am pretty good at diagnosing computer issues, a knack I have developed after many years of building and repairing them. I have had issues with computers not booting up because there is some undesireable short happenning between the case and the mobo, so I cut out a piece of antistatic bag the size of the motherboard, and place it between the mobo and the case, screw things back to gether, and what'do'ya'know, it worked fine.

Anyway, consider doing a reinstall, only takes a little while, and it's not your main PC, so who cares if it takes a while.

I have many other possible tips and hints for what might be wrong, but I think this is enough info to get you headed in the right direction.

Good luck!
 
I am currently on the "bad" computer right now. I have swapped out the PS with one from an even older PC and it is definitely staying on longer than it did. Fingers crossed.
 
I am sticking with the Previous heat or PSU problems......My windows box has had both at some point and that's the kind of stuff that happens. If you have added Hard drives video cards, sound cards, etc......since you got it your power supply could be choking....I added a sound card and to hard drives and had to move up from a 350W to a 500W....just my dos pesos
 
It's always tempting to look for hardware problems. But it sounds like you have checked all the basic stuff. Moreover, you say you can crash it every time by sending a print job through it (I'm guessing the printer is plugged into its parallel port and then "shared" to other computers on your wireless workgroup). This sounds to me like either a disk problem, or a probable corruption in Windows itself. When you print it typically writes out out to a spooler file and then feeds that out to the printer (unless you have a laser printer with decent memory). It sounds like this read/write process is crashing it.

First check the disk for errors - click on the disk in My Computer, do properties / tools. It will probably tell you that you need to schedule a test for the next reboot, say yes and then reboot and run the test.

If the test finds no problems, I would recomend re-installing windows fresh. Its a horrible pain, but its less painful than a PC that is unreliable. Make sure you back up your data first (hope you have a CD or DVD burner) and make sure to back up drivers for your PC hardware.

Good luck...
 
Man you guys are on the ball!

Sometimes I take it for granted that there are so many great minds on just a few clicks of my mouse...how I would have KILLED for this much knowledge back in the day of cutting tape!
 
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