sudden shutdown and/or freezing of XP/ Win 7 Desktop

Yesterday, while on my desktop and using the hard drive that has XP, the
unit suddenly shutdown for no reason, not a normal shut down routine,
just went off completely, like turning off by power button. Then, after
I rebooted, it would freeze after a few minutes were the only way to fix
was to reboot (ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't do anything).

I have had this desktop for over 5 years and haven't had any issues. At
boot up, I can select either XP or Win 7 as each OS is on a separate
hard drive. The first thing I decided to check was the C drive that has
XP on it, so I rebooted into Win 7 and then used scandisk to check for
and repair any errors overnight. No shutdowns and Win 7 reported no C
drive errors this morning. Right now, I am running Memtest at boot up
for a few hours to see if maybe I have a memory issue going on (but now
I'm thinking not since Win 7 was able to run overnight without shut down
or freezing.... but it is on a separate hard drive... could the XP hard
drive be doing this even though showing no errors?)

Anyway, any help would be welcome.

Thanks in advance,
R2D4

On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 11:34:51 -0500, R2D4 wrote:

Yesterday, while on my desktop and using the hard drive that has XP, the
unit suddenly shutdown for no reason, not a normal shut down routine,
just went off completely, like turning off by power button. Then, after
I rebooted, it would freeze after a few minutes were the only way to fix
was to reboot (ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't do anything).

I have had this desktop for over 5 years and haven't had any issues. At
boot up, I can select either XP or Win 7 as each OS is on a separate
hard drive. The first thing I decided to check was the C drive that has
XP on it, so I rebooted into Win 7 and then used scandisk to check for
and repair any errors overnight. No shutdowns and Win 7 reported no C
drive errors this morning. Right now, I am running Memtest at boot up
for a few hours to see if maybe I have a memory issue going on (but now
I'm thinking not since Win 7 was able to run overnight without shut down
or freezing.... but it is on a separate hard drive... could the XP hard
drive be doing this even though showing no errors?)

Check that the mains cable is pushed in properly then I'd just wait and
see if it happens again, it may just have been one of those things...
If it does happen again I'd try a new power supply first, not much else
can cause the power to just drop out.

--
Faster, cheaper, quieter than HS2
and built in 5 years;
UKUltraspeed http://www.500kmh.com/

On 02/10/2017 12:23 PM, Rodney Pont wrote:
On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 11:34:51 -0500, R2D4 wrote:

Yesterday, while on my desktop and using the hard drive that has XP, the
unit suddenly shutdown for no reason, not a normal shut down routine,
just went off completely, like turning off by power button. Then, after
I rebooted, it would freeze after a few minutes were the only way to fix
was to reboot (ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't do anything).

I have had this desktop for over 5 years and haven't had any issues. At
boot up, I can select either XP or Win 7 as each OS is on a separate
hard drive. The first thing I decided to check was the C drive that has
XP on it, so I rebooted into Win 7 and then used scandisk to check for
and repair any errors overnight. No shutdowns and Win 7 reported no C
drive errors this morning. Right now, I am running Memtest at boot up
for a few hours to see if maybe I have a memory issue going on (but now
I'm thinking not since Win 7 was able to run overnight without shut down
or freezing.... but it is on a separate hard drive... could the XP hard
drive be doing this even though showing no errors?)

Check that the mains cable is pushed in properly then I'd just wait and
see if it happens again, it may just have been one of those things...
If it does happen again I'd try a new power supply first, not much else
can cause the power to just drop out.


I was moving things in and around that particular desktop yesterday, so
it may be that the power cable isn't quite connecting. I will check
that out shortly. Right now, I'm in XP and was running the same things
I did yesterday and all good so far, no freezes or shutdowns. I also
installed HWmonitor and Tmonitor. Neither one so far showing anything
out of the ordinary with normal 12V and 5V supply voltages, temps and
clocking seem fine.

R2D4 wrote:

Yesterday, while on my desktop and using the hard drive that has XP, the
unit suddenly shutdown for no reason, not a normal shut down routine,
just went off completely, like turning off by power button. Then, after
I rebooted, it would freeze after a few minutes were the only way to fix
was to reboot (ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't do anything).

I have had this desktop for over 5 years and haven't had any issues. At
boot up, I can select either XP or Win 7 as each OS is on a separate
hard drive. The first thing I decided to check was the C drive that has
XP on it, so I rebooted into Win 7 and then used scandisk to check for
and repair any errors overnight. No shutdowns and Win 7 reported no C
drive errors this morning. Right now, I am running Memtest at boot up
for a few hours to see if maybe I have a memory issue going on (but now
I'm thinking not since Win 7 was able to run overnight without shut down
or freezing.... but it is on a separate hard drive... could the XP hard
drive be doing this even though showing no errors?)

You sure the cause is not also the cause of your taskbar freeze problem
that you posted about over in alt.comp.os.windows-10? I replied over in
that newsgroup about that problem. Looks like you have a bigger problem
which happens to cause the taskbar freeze.

When was the last time you dusted out the inside of your unidentified
computer? Dust, lint, and pet hair are thermal insulators. You need to
get out the dust, especially from the heat sinks. In the 5 years that
you owned the desktop, have you ever dusted it out? Makes sure to blow
out the heat sinks (CPU, GPU), fans, and both ways through the PSU
grills (don't take it apart unless you are comfortable doing that). The
crud might be impacted on the fan blades so you'll need an ear swab to
wipe them to scrub off the crud to then blow them out. Do NOT let the
fans spin from you blowing air through them. Use something to block the
blades from spinning when you blow through the fans (CPU, GPU, case).
NEVER use a household vacuum cleaner to dust out any electronics. They
generate static from the airflow through the nozzle or hose. You'll
probably want to disconnected everything from the PC to take it outside
to blow it out instead of blowing all that accumulated dust into your
residence.

When the CPU gets too hot (fan not spinning or not fast enough, dust
blocking air flow, ribbon cables in the way of airflow) it will either
turn off to save itself or throttle down the CPU duty cycle (to reduce
the power it consumes to reduce heat but that also slows the PC). You
should also check at what temperature thresholds your BIOS/UEFI or
startup software is configured for when it will stop the PC.

Don't know anything about your hardware since you did not provide any
specifications. PSUs lose about 5% capacity per year. Well, that's for
a decent quality PSU, not the crappy ones that many users buy to save
some money when they build their own or the vendors stick into their
pre-builts. Most of those cannot even meet their own specs under
/sustained/ load at their professed ratings. You need a PSU that has
sufficient reserve capacity when you build the box so that it still has
reserve capacity after several years and because you may add more
hardware (bigger video card, more memory, more HDDs or SSDs, etc).

That desktop is old enough to warrant replacing the CMOS battery. If it
gets too weak, you might end up with corrupted values in the CMOS table
copy of the BIOS settings, or they could revert to some presets that are
not valid for your hardware config. Coin cells don't last forever.
Some will need replacing after 3 years. Better ones will still die
after about 5-6 years.

Time to do some hardware maintenance. Get some canned air dusters, ear
swabs, and a replacement CMOS battery. While you're inside, make sure
any flat ribbon cables are not blocking airflow (they should be sideways
to the airflow). Check the fans spin up okay. With all power off,
rotate the blades by hand (for the fans you can get at) to make sure
they spin freely without any grinding or other indication of wear.

On 02/10/2017 03:35 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
R2D4 wrote:

Yesterday, while on my desktop and using the hard drive that has XP, the
unit suddenly shutdown for no reason, not a normal shut down routine,
just went off completely, like turning off by power button. Then, after
I rebooted, it would freeze after a few minutes were the only way to fix
was to reboot (ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't do anything).

I have had this desktop for over 5 years and haven't had any issues. At
boot up, I can select either XP or Win 7 as each OS is on a separate
hard drive. The first thing I decided to check was the C drive that has
XP on it, so I rebooted into Win 7 and then used scandisk to check for
and repair any errors overnight. No shutdowns and Win 7 reported no C
drive errors this morning. Right now, I am running Memtest at boot up
for a few hours to see if maybe I have a memory issue going on (but now
I'm thinking not since Win 7 was able to run overnight without shut down
or freezing.... but it is on a separate hard drive... could the XP hard
drive be doing this even though showing no errors?)

You sure the cause is not also the cause of your taskbar freeze problem
that you posted about over in alt.comp.os.windows-10? I replied over in
that newsgroup about that problem. Looks like you have a bigger problem
which happens to cause the taskbar freeze.

That wasn't me, no taskbar problems that I know of.


When was the last time you dusted out the inside of your unidentified
computer? Dust, lint, and pet hair are thermal insulators. You need to
get out the dust, especially from the heat sinks. In the 5 years that
you owned the desktop, have you ever dusted it out?

Yes I have. Believe it or not, I've actually used an electric leaf
blower with the PC case opened outdoors to dust them. It has been a
while though, probably two years. I do have a small can of air I can
use if needed.


Makes sure to blow
out the heat sinks (CPU, GPU), fans, and both ways through the PSU
grills (don't take it apart unless you are comfortable doing that). The
crud might be impacted on the fan blades so you'll need an ear swab to
wipe them to scrub off the crud to then blow them out. Do NOT let the
fans spin from you blowing air through them. Use something to block the
blades from spinning when you blow through the fans (CPU, GPU, case).
NEVER use a household vacuum cleaner to dust out any electronics. They
generate static from the airflow through the nozzle or hose. You'll
probably want to disconnected everything from the PC to take it outside
to blow it out instead of blowing all that accumulated dust into your
residence.

When the CPU gets too hot (fan not spinning or not fast enough, dust
blocking air flow, ribbon cables in the way of airflow) it will either
turn off to save itself or throttle down the CPU duty cycle (to reduce
the power it consumes to reduce heat but that also slows the PC). You
should also check at what temperature thresholds your BIOS/UEFI or
startup software is configured for when it will stop the PC.

Don't know anything about your hardware since you did not provide any
specifications. PSUs lose about 5% capacity per year. Well, that's for
a decent quality PSU, not the crappy ones that many users buy to save
some money when they build their own or the vendors stick into their
pre-builts. Most of those cannot even meet their own specs under
/sustained/ load at their professed ratings. You need a PSU that has
sufficient reserve capacity when you build the box so that it still has
reserve capacity after several years and because you may add more
hardware (bigger video card, more memory, more HDDs or SSDs, etc).

It is a unit I built from a Tigerdirect kit. I have two identical
desktops and both use an MSI G31M3 V2 motherboard, with one having quad
core and the other dual core CPU. I have had problems in the past
trying to upgrade RAM from the native 2 GB to 4, but after trying twice,
I gave up because the RAM burned out during both tries. That was the
first thing I thought of when the problems occurred, but when the RAM
went bad, the symptoms were different than this time.

The only change I made recently was adding a USB 3 card. To be able to
add the card meant having to remove a video card as the MB only has a
single PCIe slot. That change I made in the Summer though, so don't
think that's the issue now.


That desktop is old enough to warrant replacing the CMOS battery. If it
gets too weak, you might end up with corrupted values in the CMOS table
copy of the BIOS settings, or they could revert to some presets that are
not valid for your hardware config. Coin cells don't last forever.
Some will need replacing after 3 years. Better ones will still die
after about 5-6 years.

This I'll look into doing, since I installed the original battery.


Time to do some hardware maintenance. Get some canned air dusters, ear
swabs, and a replacement CMOS battery. While you're inside, make sure
any flat ribbon cables are not blocking airflow (they should be sideways
to the airflow). Check the fans spin up okay. With all power off,
rotate the blades by hand (for the fans you can get at) to make sure
they spin freely without any grinding or other indication of wear.

I'll try a dusting/ cleaning. If worse comes to worse, I could switch
out power supplies from the nearly identical desktop I hardly use
(nearly identical but uses different OS).

R2D4 wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

R2D4 wrote:

You sure the cause is not also the cause of your taskbar freeze problem
that you posted about over in alt.comp.os.windows-10?

That wasn't me, no taskbar problems that I know of.

Oops, different mishmash nym. Sorry.

When was the last time you dusted out the inside of your unidentified
computer? Dust, lint, and pet hair are thermal insulators. You need to
get out the dust, especially from the heat sinks. In the 5 years that
you owned the desktop, have you ever dusted it out?

Yes I have. Believe it or not, I've actually used an electric leaf
blower with the PC case opened outdoors to dust them.

That won't provide the focus you need to blow the dust out from between
the fins of a heatsink. I could throw a stick of dynamite onto the top
of my backyard but the blast won't get rid of the moles under the soil.

On 02/10/2017 05:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
R2D4 wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

R2D4 wrote:

You sure the cause is not also the cause of your taskbar freeze problem
that you posted about over in alt.comp.os.windows-10?

That wasn't me, no taskbar problems that I know of.

Oops, different mishmash nym. Sorry.

When was the last time you dusted out the inside of your unidentified
computer? Dust, lint, and pet hair are thermal insulators. You need to
get out the dust, especially from the heat sinks. In the 5 years that
you owned the desktop, have you ever dusted it out?

Yes I have. Believe it or not, I've actually used an electric leaf
blower with the PC case opened outdoors to dust them.

That won't provide the focus you need to blow the dust out from between
the fins of a heatsink. I could throw a stick of dynamite onto the top
of my backyard but the blast won't get rid of the moles under the soil.


I took the desktop outside and used the canned air covering all the
areas discussed here. So far, so good. I'm trying to keep a careful
watch on voltages and temps, especially when I start up programs and
videos. Just have to wait and see if it does it again. Thanks for you
and others help here.

R2D4 wrote:

On 02/10/2017 05:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
R2D4 wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

R2D4 wrote:

You sure the cause is not also the cause of your taskbar freeze problem
that you posted about over in alt.comp.os.windows-10?

That wasn't me, no taskbar problems that I know of.

Oops, different mishmash nym. Sorry.

When was the last time you dusted out the inside of your unidentified
computer? Dust, lint, and pet hair are thermal insulators. You need to
get out the dust, especially from the heat sinks. In the 5 years that
you owned the desktop, have you ever dusted it out?

Yes I have. Believe it or not, I've actually used an electric leaf
blower with the PC case opened outdoors to dust them.

That won't provide the focus you need to blow the dust out from between
the fins of a heatsink. I could throw a stick of dynamite onto the top
of my backyard but the blast won't get rid of the moles under the soil.


I took the desktop outside and used the canned air covering all the
areas discussed here. So far, so good. I'm trying to keep a careful
watch on voltages and temps, especially when I start up programs and
videos. Just have to wait and see if it does it again. Thanks for you
and others help here.

If the mobo didn't come with software to monitor temperatures, you could
use Speedfan. Although it is handy for regulating the speed of fans (to
keep them slow and quiet when the load is low but rev them up when temps
exceeded configured thresholds), it also tells you what are the
temperatures of the CPU, GPU, case, and perhaps other sensors. It has a
chart that lets you see how RPMs or temperatures have fluctuated but
it's not for a very long window. Something else would be needed to keep
a running log of monitored temps to see when they got high (but you'd
have to remember what you were doing at the time, like playing a video
game or processing videos).