On 7 Nov 2003 08:34:29 -0800, (Kiran Math)
wrote:
Computer P4 2.0
O/S: Windows XP Pro.
RAM : 256 MB
Mother board : ECS P4

The computer works fine for say 4 hours. Then the whole thing freezes.
Then when I do a cold boot. It hangs when runing the BIOS ( during the
intial phase of finding the harddisk etc).
If I shut down the computer for 20 mins or so it works fine past the
BIOS running stage, but hangs after the XP comes up.
If I keep the computer shut down for a day or so, it works fine again
for next 3-4 hrs and then the problem starts again.

I have changed the Hard drive, BIOS battery etc but the problem still
continues.

The computer is still a fresh install.

What might be the problem. Is it the faulty processor?

It sounds like an overheating problem of some sort of other. A few
possibilities:

Check to make sure that the heatsink is properly installed on the
processor and that the fan is working.

Make sure that any other fans in the system (ie on the video card or
motherboard chipset) are working properly.

Make sure that your power supply fan is working properly.

It might be worthwhile to check the temperature of various chips after
it crashes. Just touch them briefly to see if they are running
abnormally hot.

Other than overheating, power would be my first guess of a problem,
either a flaky power supply or flaky power regulation circuitry on the
motherboard. If you've got a spare power supply to swap into the
system, you might want to try that out.

One other little trick that might help if it's a power related
problem, after it crashes, turn the machine off and physically unplug
the power cable from the back of the PC. Then toggle the little power
button on the back of the power supply a couple of times (if your
power supply doesn't have a hard power button at the back, skip this
step!) and hit the regular "soft" power button at the front a couple
times. Then plug the main power cable back in and try starting the
system up. This may clear the problem for you. If it does, you
definitely have some flaky component in the power system, either the
supply itself or the regulators on the motherboard.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca