Win xp hanging

[Timmy]

I have a problem that win xp keeps hanging.

I just did a fresh install of win xp pro. I have a amd thunderbird 1.4, with 512mb of ram and a gf2, 32x burner, dvd drive and two 40 gig hdds.

It just seems to hang at random points. Some times when i am using it other times when i am not. I check the event log but nothing comes up in it. I have all the power and hibernate options turned off. Can anyone help please?

[Richard]

This could be bad memory, if you have 2x256mbs try just putting one in and seeing how it goes.

Thanks

Richard

[rohithmr]

Hey,
I had the same problem. I tried everthing that i knew of, but the only thing that worked was a FRESH install of WinXP. When i say FRESH install, it meanz completely formatting ur HDD and then using the XP CDROM install. IF you by any chance encouter really slow startup times just defragment all of ur HDDs. That should do the trick.

[Timmy]

Ok well i have 1 x 256 and 2 x 128 for my memory and i have tried using them singley and its the same.

This has happened to me before as well and the only way i fixed it was with a clean install. I was just hoping there would be a quick fix instead of reinstalling again.

And i always do a FRESH install. There really is no other way.

[Reverend]

Hi,
the HDD you are installing XP on may be faulty and have some bad sectors.
Have you tried installing XP on the other 40gig HDD?

[Timmy]

Well i do have another 40 gig lying round somewhere. But i use ntfs and i thought it marks bad sectors and doesn't try to write to them. But i can give it a go. Or maybe i should just go back to win2kpro?

[Big Booger]

Have you tried changing your video card? Your video card could cause the hang. Also, what other programs do you have installed whilst it hangs? Does it hang immediately after the fresh install? Have you updated all your drivers?
What about your power supply? How much juice do you have 200-350watts+?

Have you tried doing a dual boot with windows 2000?
Just some ideas.
BB

[Timmy]

i usually just have mirc, msn and kazaa lite running when i'm afk, but also sometimes virtualdub, gordian knot or tmpgenc (all video encoders).

I never had problems with my video card b4. But i will try changing it. It doesn't hang straight away it takes time. From what i can tell a random time. My power supply is 300w

What advantage would a dual boot give me? Surely Xp would still hang?

[Reverend]

Install XP on the other HDD,if you still have the problem let us know and we'll try some more options.

[zErO]

Does sound like a hardrive fault could be starting to fail on you, before it totally crashes. May have a problem reading beyond certain sectors, either bad or becoming unusable

[Timmy]

Ok thanx guys. i'll get round to trying the otehr drive later and get back to you with a reply. Thanx for all your help

[egghead]

hi:

you have kazza lite installed

goto www.lavasoftusa.com
download ad-aware and see if spyware is causing you probz
then goto www.antivirus.com
do the free online scan

next get atomicxp bootvis and xpantispy
http://www.winxp.pl/xp_utils.html
run atomicxp reboot
run xpantispy
run bootvis trace/optimize system
make sure disk utilization is checked on the left

that should make your system solid

if it stll hangs
run scandisk
run defrag
if it says no errors found than your hd is fine
remember to turn smart drive on in the bios for warings on hd defects

if all this doesnt fix the problem than get driver updates get sp1
i think its just a program accessing the internet and pausing until a response from a server


when you say hang?
mouse froze?
do you get ctrl-alt-delete?
if its web related get virtual machine from m$

what board do you have?

egghead

[phishhead]

you said that it takes awhile before it hangs..this happened to me before on win2k..turned out to a bad cpu fan...and after while damn thing got to hot and would start acting funny BSOD then finally lock up...so might want to check the cpu and vid fan.

[Timmy]

Ok try and answer these questions.

I have kazaa lite yes, and i run adware and norton regularly so thats cool.

I defrag often. Not sure how to scandisk in xp.

All my drivers are up to date. Except for my gfx card ones cause the new ones cause problems. The hang is a complete hang or freeze up or whatever its called. ctrl+alt+del doesn't work, mouse is frozen, only think that works is to reset. I already have virtual machine.

As far as i am aware the cpu fan is fine. And i recently put in a new one and had this problem b4 with the previous fan.

[phishhead]

well s&#t guess a reformat is in order...I think you exhausted all possibilities...and reformat is usually easier after troubleshooting that long. I would reformat and do a fdisk /mbr and then reinstall.