I built a computer for my wife some time ago. Unfortuately she likes to use downloaded screensavers to make her desktop look like whatever season it is. For the last month or so her computer will hard lock forcing a reboot by pressing reset. It will not respond to any keyboard commands when it locks. After reboot it operates normally for any period of time you wish to use it. If she uses only screen savers that come with XP it seems to have less problems. If she uses any other screensavers the problem reoccurs more frequently. Sometimes it will hardlock while she is using the computer like reading email. In fact it just did. I have scanned her computer and removed all spyware I can. She has no viruses. I hate to reformat and reload the OS because of all the data I will have to save and reload. Is there anything else I can do to diagnose the problem?

try Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse....mp;categoryid=7

You could clear the entries in Event Viewer then when it locks up view the events. Might give you a place to start if it's software.



You can find Event Viewer in Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer.

To clear items right click on each of the tree catagories and choose "clear all events"

I punted. I gave up , built a spare computer and loaded all her stuff on it. Now I have her computer downstairs undergoing a reformat and reload of the OS. Then I will replace all of her stuff again. At least I got all her pics backed up on cd's by doing this. And I got off my lazy ass and built that last spare puter out of parts I had lying around. Now to figure out what to do with it when hers is refurbed???

Your usual, charity or backup.

Grrrr. I reloaded XP OS and had the computer running like new . In the first 30 minutes that I put the computer back up I had to reboot twice. The first time I clicked the start tab in the lower left and a ghost image of the program list appeared but woud not leave. CTRL/alt/del did not work. Refreshing the screen didn't work. I had to reboot to get rid of the image. BAd sign. Not 15 minutes later I was loading pictures and music on the computer , multitasking , and it froze with a high pitched buzzing noise that I have heard from this computer before. I had to reboot again. A bit later my wife was in her email and she said it hard locked and she had to reboot. I replaced it with the spare I built which is working fine and took it down to my workbench. Now where do I look first? I am leaning towards a bad memory module that might work well until it hits a bad sector. I guess it could be the hard drive but it reformatted with no problems. Video seems unlikely. Also this computer has always said ( on post) that there is no 80 conductor cable on Ide1. IDE1 is the DVD drive. Could this be a problem? Any suggestions? Is there a good program that will test memory?

High pitched whining sounds like a fan, possible power supply or the fan on the vid card. I've had the vid card fan get clogged with dust and my comp did the whining sound with image distortion/freezing with comp/OS lockup. After checking for kinks in the cable, proper seating on the mobo and at the drive, swap out the IDE1 cable just to eliminate it from the scenario. I went over to better, quieter fans and that helps with overall noise and troubleshooting as you can now "hear" other sounds that weren't apparent before due to the hovercraft at takeoff noise volume with high CFM fans. Since I'm not running a super fast and therefore hotter rig, the low noise fans still work very well as they are large with lower RPM but still move air very well. As to the ram checking software, sorry, no idea. I used to have programs like that but they are long gone.

It is more of a buzzing sound , not like a fan. I don't have a fan on the video card , just a heat sink. I did replace the cable on the IDE 1 and it still says the same thing. Power supply could be suspect. I have a copy of troubleshooter which I will borrow tomorrow and it should test all hardware components. I still question the memory. Most of my problems in the past are when memory goes bad.

Buzzing you say? Hmm, does the pitch of the buzzing increase, decrease with H.D. activity? If the sound is steady state, then I suspect something is loose and could be grounding, shorting out. However, the buzzing my be a separate non-related issue and not the source of your problem.
1). Try to isolate the sound.
2). Try to differentiate the sound as to volume increase/decrease, pitch/timbre increase/decrease.
3). Disconnect all non-neccessary peripherals.
4). Run defrag/error check on h.d./partitions.
5). If two sticks ram involved try testing with just one, try both separately, and if available try different ram modules/brand.
6). Spare power supply, swap out and test with "new" one.
7). Disconncet the Cd, DVD drives altogether...... see 3).

Let me know what you come up with. Oh, make sure that the CPU is seated properly, check its contact with the heatsink/fan and make sure the h.s. fan can spin freely.
Good luck, Doc.

Doc, here's a good memory test program.


http://www.memtest86.com/

ps
I'm in complete agreement about the power supply being suspect, I would swap that out. And the swapping and isolating of the ram sticks, like Burner suggested Ray

I will get the troubleshooter program today and test but after working on it last night I did find several power cords that were touching the motherboard and possibly causing shorts. I recabled the entire inside very adroitly. It now seems to be working well. I will still test further. Thanks for suggestions.

You are most welcome. Hope it is fixed.

Both Disk drives and HARD DRIVES will make buzzing/clicking sounds when they are having problems . Just cause you were able to reformat your HD doc doesnt mean its not getin ready to take a crap on ya.
Youve written good info on your problem Doc but I cant say for sure with what Ive read. Dont trust that system with anything not backedup