Computer likes to freeze up, especially when playing CDs--any ideas?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Whoopysnorp
  • Start date Start date
Whoopysnorp

Whoopysnorp

New member
My tracking computer is a venerable AthlonXP 1500+ based rig. It's running on an Abit KG7 with half a gig of RAM and a Delta 66 synced with a Delta 1010lt for sound. It used to be rock-solid back when I built it in 2002 or so, but for a while now it has been liking to freeze completely solid at seemingly random times. I got sick of it, so I built a new computer to use at home and relegated the old one for tracking only (it lives down at our rehearsal space). Of course, it's no good for a computer to freeze up right in the middle of a great take, so I have to finally do something about this.

I can get it to freeze most often when playing audio CDs with Windows Media Player. Playing mp3s in Winamp causes it to freeze somewhat less often. It seems a little better when tracking or playing things back in n-Track, but it still happens. I was thinking for a while it might be some kind of conflict that was created when I added the Delta 1010lt into the system, since I couldn't remember it happening before that, but I just tried pulling the 1010lt out and playing a CD. It froze within a minute. At this point, I'm ready to just throw up my hands and find an old motherboard on eBay that will support my old chip and RAM. I'd buy a new mobo, chip, and RAM, but my funds are limited, and I don't really need my tracking machine to be any faster than it is. So unless any of you smart people know of another component that may be likely to be causing the problem, that's what I'll do. Any suggestions?
 
I would check to make sure you have all of the Updated Drivers for your motherbaords chipset and also make sure you have the latest BIOS release for your board.

What version of windows are you running?

Have you tried running the system in safe mode to try and get it to freeze?

Scanned for Virus/Adware/Spyway/Anyware?
 
Failing that, what I always do is just format and reinstall windows from scratch. Obviously make sure that you have everything backed up somewhere. Then once you have reinstalled what you need, use an app like norton ghost to take an image of your hard drive. That way if it happens again, you wont have to go through the lengthy reinstall process.
 
legionserial said:
Failing that, what I always do is just format and reinstall windows from scratch. Obviously make sure that you have everything backed up somewhere. Then once you have reinstalled what you need, use an app like norton ghost to take an image of your hard drive. That way if it happens again, you wont have to go through the lengthy reinstall process.
Click to expand...

I did two complete formats and reinstalls from scratch, and neither one fixed the problem. At the moment, being a DAW only, all I have on there is my recording software and that's it.

I'm running Windows XP SP1. I tried flashing the BIOS and updating the motherboard drivers a long time ago, but no go. Spyware wouldn't be an issue because it hasn't been connected to the internet even once since the most recent OS install. I haven't tried safe mode.

Last night I went on eBay and found somebody selling a lot of Gigabyte GA-7DX boards for 13 bucks each. It's a board based on the AMD761 chipset just like my current Abit, so I went for it. We'll see if that fixes anything. If not, at least it was cheap.
 
Take a look at your PSU also, if a clean install does not fix the problem you may be looking at a component going bad
 
Whoopysnorp said:
My tracking computer is a venerable AthlonXP 1500+ based rig. It's running on an Abit KG7 with half a gig of RAM and a Delta 66 synced with a Delta 1010lt for sound. It used to be rock-solid back when I built it in 2002 or so, but for a while now it has been liking to freeze completely solid at seemingly random times. I got sick of it, so I built a new computer to use at home and relegated the old one for tracking only (it lives down at our rehearsal space). Of course, it's no good for a computer to freeze up right in the middle of a great take, so I have to finally do something about this.

I can get it to freeze most often when playing audio CDs with Windows Media Player. Playing mp3s in Winamp causes it to freeze somewhat less often. It seems a little better when tracking or playing things back in n-Track, but it still happens. I was thinking for a while it might be some kind of conflict that was created when I added the Delta 1010lt into the system, since I couldn't remember it happening before that, but I just tried pulling the 1010lt out and playing a CD. It froze within a minute. At this point, I'm ready to just throw up my hands and find an old motherboard on eBay that will support my old chip and RAM. I'd buy a new mobo, chip, and RAM, but my funds are limited, and I don't really need my tracking machine to be any faster than it is. So unless any of you smart people know of another component that may be likely to be causing the problem, that's what I'll do. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Well, it's always possible that the OS installation is hosed, but when you get lots of random OS crashes, the odds tend to be more in favor of hardware than anything else.

I usually check the following, in order:

1. Test RAM. Pull half the RAM, see if it fixes the problem. If not, pull the other half.
2. Test CPU. Get a CPU test app that just taxes the CPU as hard as possible. If it crashes:
a. Check the CPU temperature and see if it exceeds rated limits. If so, fix your heat sink.
b. Reseat the CPU and see if the problem goes away.
3. You mentioned it happened more frequently when playing CDs. This suggests possibly a problem with the ATA bus. Try disconnecting devices, replacing/rerouting cables, etc. See if you can make the problem go away. If you aren't using 80-pin cables, go ahead and replace them with 80-pin cables before you even bother doing any further testing.
4. Power supply under load. Make sure all of the supply rails measure 12v or 5v even under load. You should not see the voltage drop below that point at any time. If you do, either one PSU rail has too much hardware hanging off of it or that rail of your power supply is failing. Take corrective action.
5. Thermal cutoffs. Check your CPU temperature, GPU temperature, any other motherboard temperature monitors, etc. Make sure they are all within specs.
6. Power filtering capacitors on the main logic board. Look for cans with their ends distended. If you're good with a soldering pencil, replace them, otherwise get somebody else to do it.... :D
7. Power filtering capacitors in the power supply. Try swapping in a different power supply and see if the crashes go away.

If all these things fail, it's probably something more subtle on either the motherboard or the CPU. Borrow a CPU and swap it in to find out for certain. Maybe try swapping other peripherals. If that doesn't help, you can probably assume the motherboard is shot. I guess as a last ditch, you could try hooking the hard drive up to another similar machine and see if you experience the same crashes, which would indicate a software issue.


EDIT: Oh, and Abit has a recall for bad caps on some of its motherboards. For info, see

http://os.vault9.net/forums/Abit_to_replace_boards_with_capacitor_problems-t22242.html
 
Thanks for the tips, dgatwood. Since I've already ordered a replacement, I'll try replacing the motherboard first, and if that doesn't work I'll go down your line of suggestions. It looks like the KG7 board wasn't included in that recall but the KT7 was, which is a similar model number.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top