Win2K SP2 Freezes

[djronh1]

Here\'s my problem,

I got a TBird 750, 640MB PC133 RAM (2 X 256 + 1 X 128), 3COM 3C905TX NIC, ATI All-In-Wonder 128 16MB AGP, Lucent 56K Winmodem, Toshiba DVD, TDK 16X10X40 Burner. Western Digital WD307AA & WD400BB.

I\'ve have never been able to get this system 100%.  I\'m using ALL default BIOS settings. Tried latest 4-in1.  I\'ve even tried wiping driving and install Win ME.  In ME the system would sometimes reboot will I was ripping an Audio CD and tried to use IE.  It Would also reboot when trying to print Adobe Acrobat files.

Sometimes on a warm boot the system will hang after doing memory check, and will never contiue to auto detect drives. I must do hard reset or power off.

My Problem in W2K is that the system will just freeze for no reason.  Usually when using IE.  When it freezes I some time get green and pink vertical stripes in my title bar only. The system locks up hard.  Will only respond to reset button, or power off. I\'ve installed every update/hotfix/service pack for any piece of software I have. I installed the latest driver for every piece of hardware. I\'ve updated BIOS & firmware on everything.

[Josetann]

My first guess would be some bad ram.  Try it with just one 256MB stick, then with the other, etc.  See if it acts up each time.  Also slow the timings down.  Set it to 3-3-3 timings, see if it keeps acting up.

Go into your bios disable all the shadowing features (bios shadow, video shadow, etc.).  You can also try switching PNP OS to Yes or No (if it\'s set to Yes, try No...and vice versa).  I\'ve had better luck setting it to No (bios sets all the IRQ\'s, DMA\'s, etc. to all your devices that way...otherwise windows does that).  Try taking different components out.  See if it works better without the modem, or the nic, etc.  Just moving parts around can help sometimes.

Basically, it sounds like a hardware problem.  Still a chance it could be software, so make doubly sure all your drivers are up to date, latest via 4-in-1 (if you have a via chipset mobo), etc.

[Power2rice]

Your motherboard is faulty.  How do I know?  I service systems everyday.  It\'s not ram, (remember, your system does a quick ram test on boot).  Also, faulty components could be it, which is rare.  If your board is is Tyan, it\'s the board no doubt.  Upgrade to Asus, it\'s the best board for Thunderbirds to date, or 2nd best if not the best.  Generally with boards made for AMD, you either buy the best, or prepare to replace it again within the 1st year.

[Tom Minerd]

It doesn\'t matter if you service computers all day long. You have to do troubleshooting to find out exactly what is wrong with the system. First thing to do is reseat all components, especially memory, video, expansion cards, and ide cables. You can\'t just assume that a part is bad. You can even take the system down to just the basic components that will allow you to boot into the OS. Take all expansion cards out except for video, reseat memory or swap with known good memory if possible. disconnect all peripherals from the machine except for mouse, keyboard and monitor. See if your system still locks up. You may have to take it to a shop to have a diagnostic run on the hardware if you do not have these programs at home. Just don\'t upgrade because somebody says it\'s the motherboard before confirming it.

[Anonymous]

My vote? Video card driver problems, or overheating problems, either with the CPU, video card, or less likely but possible, power-supply issues. Usually those don\'t result in stripes on the screen though, although video card driver/hardware crashes often do.

[Anonymous]

I had a heckova time with win2k, even just getting it installed, with my m805LR (don\'t laugh) mobo with a 1.2gig Athlon.  I had the freezing and the \"line\" thing going on, as well as sudden restarts.  That\'s all history now.  First of all, do what the man says and strip down and then reseat everything... and that means totally remove it and thenput it back in.
Then... I HAD to change all of the following in my case:

1. You simply cannot get away with using cheap mem in a non-pentium system (imho), esp w/via chipset (my case), ... for via I use Corsair RAM... get the best RAM - its a huge factor, don\'t scrimp.

2. Power Supplies are leading factor w/non-pents as well... make sure you\'ve got at least 350W, and a good brand name.  I definitely had to upgrade mine.

3. There is a known problem with win2k and the via chipset which is addressed in both the Via4-in-1driver-set (new only as of Feb)... so use it.  Also, there are two fixes in the Win2k SP2, so it is highly recommended.  I have been running it successfully for several weeks without a hiccup, so I would say it is safely recommendable.  It addresses some graphic driver problems and something else related to the via chipset, which I cannot recall offhand.

4. I have an OEM nvidia and I had to \"Downgrade\" the drivers to either one of 5.12 or 5.33 (you can try them both - that is, those of you with nVidia, but I post this so you get a clue you may have to shake out the right driver....)  ...I suggest the best way to do this is through intensive searching for posts, etc, where you may run across someone using your flavor of OS and Video card...ie, search on those two things... you may turn up a good lead.

5.  Yeah, I had to flah update my bios... but (only) after everything is said and done, hey, I am actually beginning to oc this thing as well!

I had a nightmare on my hands and I wrote all about it in a post called \"Intermittent Screen Freezes\" (or something like that) at the forums at www.mrpcpro.com in the general hardware section, if you care to check it.  I have listed a lot of links related to everything I mention here, and more, which I found indispensable while wrestling down w2k into my T-Bird.  I got a stable web server running in it now, and its fairly rock solid... and I really didn\'t think it was gonna happen!  Hope this helps.
twohawks

[YTZ]

Give me a break.  So many of you \"so-called\" computer experts haven\'t got a clue as to what\'s wrong do you?  Or how to fix it...

First step....ALWAYS remove all NON-ESSENTIAL parts from the system.  This means everything not needed to boot your operating system and troubleshoot from there.  This eliminates all of the peripheral cards (this also means all of the additional onboard functionality such as sound, modem, netcard, RAID, etc.).  You should also knock out any tweaks you\'ve used to increase system performance (CPU overclocking, RAM timing, etc.) and reset your BIOS to its default settings.

Second Step....Once you have a streamlined system, if you still notice the problem during usage, then you have a faulty piece of hardware that is critical to the stability of your system and can easily swap good pieces for potentially bad ones.  OR, if the instability goes away and never returns (over whatever timeframe you feel comfortable with), then you replace one component at a time and reevaluate the system.  

You will find what is the problem in the system, although you may have a hard time narrowing down the problem if you don\'t have spares available for your CPU, hard drive, etc.  This is the most consistent, thorough method of troubleshooting you can do, with the quickest results.  It\'s referred to as deductive reasoning for you \"service kiddies\".  And it\'s been around a lot longer than PC\'s have.

[daPrf3t]

I have the same problem with 2 computers. One has an ASUS CUV4X-E and a Pentium III the other has a ASUS P5A-B and a AMD 350. They both freeze for no reason. Using Adobe reader will crash it often. I have tried diferent WIN2K installation CD\'s. Both computers have Linux RH, it never happens when Linux is running. I have spent lots of hours and $ trying to fix this. I have changed hardware, Software, run it in Safe mode, you name it. I drives me nuts!!!!!
Is not the motherboard, is not the memory, is not he keyboard, is not the mouse, is not the monitor, darn the only common thing i can find is WIN2K .
Every one tells me how great WIN2K works for them. It does not work on the 2 computers I have.

[Anonymous]

You wrote that the only thing both boxes had in common was Win2K, therefore Win2K must be the problem. You missed something in that statement, there are two things in common, Win2K & Red Hat. Your problem could be your boot manager. I\'ve been running Win2K since it came, not any real problems for me except for buggy third party software, which is the case for most users. Are you using an origional Win2K cd or a \"copy\"?

[Anonymous]

Did you install the registry correction for win2000 and K7 processor?? You can find info about it on the AMD web site. Without the correction, you can get video corruption and freeze like the one you mentionned.

good luck

[Anonymous]

The above post sounds good I will give it a try as I have been having the same/similar problem with my Duron 800 on Gigabyte 7IXE4 with cheap nvidea tnt2 clone. I have successfully used Windows 98 with minor problems only using Corel Draw.

However, I have had exact same freeze problem (particularly using IE) on both NT and Win2k. The problem is [censored]ty hardware, probably the video card in my case. Most OS can handle this but NT & Win2k uses a totally different method of allow software to interact with hardware. This is why you do not have this problem in Linux. It seems the problem is based around PCI/AGP bus latency management in these OS.

I have not fixed this problem, but I have discovered a work around which has made my system bulletproof (was 5 crashes a day, now none in two weeks).

Workaround is in DISPLAY SETTINGS/ PROPERTIES/ ADVANCED/ TROUBLESHOOTING/ HARDWARE ACCELERATION. Move the slide scale down one notch (disable cursor and bitmap accelerations) and all my problems were gone.

Also my advice for criticism is not to criticise unless you can do better.

[R00key]

I have the same problem.. I took out my soundblaster (i noticed that my motherboard is a motherboard and sound card in one). And I did the \"Move the slide scale down one notch (disable cursor and bitmap accelerations)\" thing... I hope this works.. This [censored] is driving me crazy and I refuse to go back to a DOS based OS (win 98).. I\'ll keep you guys updated.

[R00key]

Well... that didn\'t do much good... any other bright ideas?

[Anonymous]

I had the same problems on 3 PIII machines
This has to do with bad driver interaction.
Every time you use a few net APPS for more than five minuts
It Freezes up.
The only solution was to find updated vendor graphic drivers.
I know it sounds crazy -> the interaction between the net and
the graphics driver.
but its the only thing that solved the problem,
after days of clean installes and reformating....

[Nick]

I hate to muddy the water, but I had the same w2k sp2 freezes for about 3 months, sometimes several times a day.  After about a week of strange noises, with my several disk diagnostic programs telling me everything is ok hd-wise, my 80gb IBM Deskstar made in Hungary (thousands are crashing weekly)  totally crashed.

So now, with a new s2k sp2 install and new WD 80gb disks, I so far (10 days) don\'t get the \'freeze.\'

(I have Creative sound built into the mobo)

[CAM]

I am running intno similar problems.
What we have in common is that we both have ATI all in wonder video and 3com905 networkcards.
I also have a cd writer but with a cd player.
I have an acer board with a 200mmx procesor and no modem.
I haven\'t found the solution yet but I can give you a clue.
My system was running fine until I ran the WIN2K upgrade.
The same day the problem started
Also ATI  multimedia center had to upgraded to 7.x.
If you find the problem please let me know , i wil do the same.
Thanks
cam

[wbienek]

I have that problem, and I find its related to my ATI All In Wonder card.. I have the same mb too...