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This is not a windows question, i wanna give some background to the problem.
I have been using Windows Me for about 3 years with no problems. About a week ago, it just started freezing on me. It would always freeze about 5 minutes after loaded. It would freeze with no programs running and it would freeze with programs running.
I bought "moving to linux" by marcel gagne. With it came a cd with knoppix on it. with that cd in the cd drive upon startup of my computer it loaded knoppix. It too, after about 5 minutes, freezes. Running no programs or any programs, it freezes.
When it freezes (for both windows and knoppix), there is nothing i can do. ctr-alt-del does nothing. The mouse does not move. I have to do a forced shut down by pushing the power button.
I have 256 Mb of memory and about 3GB of free harddrive space.
My question: is this a hardware problem like something is overheating, or is this a software problem/virus. If it's a hardware problem, i can understand how it freezes for both windows and knoppix. if it's software related, i don't understand why knoppix still freezes. I thought linux was a very stable OS.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Bill
Last edited by dollar4bill; 06-19-2004 at 05:12 PM.
Is the 256Mg RAM one stick or two? From the sounds of it, this definitely sounds like bad memory to me. Alternatively, it may be a controller problem or a bad drive or overheating, but I'd be willing to bet that it's definitely hardware. Just as you said, if it were a Windows virus, it would only affect Windows.
Anyway, system hangups are actually pretty common if you've got mis-matched memory sticks installed. The best is to us a single stick of memory, next best is to use 2 identical sticks (same manufacturer, same amount, same speed, same model number). If you've got 2 sticks that don't match, then the third best option is to only install one stick. -- J.W.
it's two 128 Mb sticks but they've been in there for the past 3 years and i've had no problems. I hadn't made any hardware changes when this started happening. I did have to take the tower on about a 15 minute car ride because i changed where i was living. Could something have happened during that ride. I don't recall any hard bumps or bangs that endured. thanks for your insight.
Did the bad behavior only start happening after you moved? If so, then it's likely that during the move either something was loosened (more likely) or possibly damaged (less likely but possible)
My recommendation to you would be to open up the case, then one by one unplug and reseat each connector cable (including the ribbon cables to the hard drive, CD player, etc) as well as to reseat the memory, plus all the peripheral components (keyboard, mouse, monitor, priinter, etc) The idea is to eliminate the possibility of ANY loose cable connections. I'll guess theres a 3:1 ratio that this will fix it. If not, then it gets a little tricky, but if it consistently locks up after X minutes of use, then it could be some kind of overheating problem.
The only other question would be to ask if the hard drive recently started making any unusual sounds. If yes, maybe it has been damaged, but I'm less confident this is the case because if the hard drive is bad, you generally wouldn't be able to operate the computer at all. Good luck with it -- J.W.
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