Something to try is take the cover panel off the PC - if it allows you to use it with the cover off, some PCs don't.
If yours allows it then point a small house fan towards it and see if that helps.
Cooling issues could arise from dust build up on the power supply fan, which aren't that easy to clean.
This website says the RS482, with the heat sink, is the Northbridge chip and the SB400 is the Southbridge.
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c00496280
It will run with the side panel off. I'll try that with a small fan & see what happens.
If it stops the problem, I'll put an extra fan in the case permanently.
Seems like if it was a PSU problem, the whole computer would shut down. ??
Will check the PSU fan, also just sort of bug check all the hardware as well as I can.
I could check the thermal paste under both heat sinks, but I sure don't want to.
Also, if CPUID is to be believed, the monitored temps stay quite normal.
Maybe that SB400 chip doesn't have a sensor?
Right now the computer has been running all day, standby most of the time, up and active for about an hour, it's doing fine and temps are normal.
May have fixed it. I got right down next to its little audio input jack and whispered a magic incantation: JUNKYARD . . .JUNKYARD . . . JUNKYARD . . .
The fans immediately slowed and the monitor got brighter.
Still pursuing it as time permits. Will post anything that develops, and if you guys think of anything else say so.
Something else to try is starting pulling things out like the graphics card, etc., and put them back in as something loose could cause issues.
A couple of years ago I did that, and noticed the video card connectors that have that copper color had what looked like cooked on discolored blackened dust, I cleaned those connectors with a pencil eraser.
agree, the vid card and ram module connections can oxidise.
removing, wiping and reseating can fix many 'weird' issues.
PS: did you not think to say the magic incantation in post 1.
Ran chkdsk and sfc /scannow. All OK.
Ran an avast boot scan. All OK.
Manually deleted the recycle bins in safe mode. All OK.
This was all a couple of days ago.
edit: Temps remain normal, as in the screenshot below.
I guess the next step is a hardware checkup.
Have located a replacement motherboard but don't want to go that way unless absolutely necessary.
What could possibly go wrong when replacing a mother board, eh?
A flowchart, it's a PDF:
http://www.fonerbooks.com/poster.pdf
Just a quick update and thank you to everybody who has helped.
I haven't said much about this job simply because i don't have much time just now to work on it.
One thing i did is switch over to the last version of Palemoon for xp, and that seems to have helped. Much quicker and lighter on resources.
Am monitoring the temps and processes to see if anything spikes just before a lock up. No patterns observed yet.
More later.
Change of avatar did it.
Yep. Gotta love the pare pair pear.
And thanks for the palemoon suggestion, it really is better.
Come to think of it, that might have been Hazelnut's suggestion.
?? duhhh . . . Anyways it's a good'un.
Of course, we locked up about an hour after that post. I knew better than to gloat.
One thing did change at about the same time the lockups started. I ran Puppy 528 from a live CD and allowed it to put the 2 permanent files onto this computer C: partition.
- there is a folder called l5281204.053 with a file called lupu_528.sfs in it, size = 290 mb,
- and also a file called lupusave-20161022_2.2fs, size = 512 mb
23 of the 45 gb on that partiton is free space, so still plenty of room on C.
Just thinking aloud.
I ran Puppy 528 from a live CD...
Does Linux not lock up then? Is is just Windows that's causing the issues?
Not sure of that.
Windows will run for a day or two, then at some point it will lock up as described earlier.
Often but not always when resuming from standby.
I don't run Puppy for that long for two reasons.
One, because the computer won't go completely to standby and shut down.
Plus, I don't entirely trust the firewall capabilitires in Linux. Mostly because I haven't read up on them.
A new clue.
Windows xp locked up on my newer computer, the one set up to dual boot wxp and w7 from 2 separate HDDs.
Happened after the OS had been on standby for several hours, was awakened and connectied to the net to update the AV.
It has a much faster processor, more RAM, is of course newer, and has never locked up before.
The active softwares common to both xp computers are Avast, Spywareblaster, Outpost Firewall, Sandboxie, and Powershadow.
I'm beginning to suspect a conflict with Avast since it is the only one of those that has changes regularly.
I will check over on the Avast forums, see what they have to say.
It could also be something with Outpost, but i have one of the old versions, a firewall only, never needs to update. It does have a feature called Feedback. Since Agnitum sold to Yandex, the update servers for Outpost apparently don't work, and that may have some negative effect on that "Feedback" function.
Well, Mta, it's a needle in a haystack for sure. I'll continue to post up anything that seems relevant or until you guys tell me to hush up about it.
In the meantime, can anyone please suggest a good firewall and antivirus for xp? I'll probably replace both.
Edit:
Andavari, I still haven't run Linux for any length of time on the old computer, to check for lockup, but I will as soon as I can.
good firewall and AV for XP?
you didn't mention free or not, so for free AV, I've only ever used Panda, Avast or AVG and all have been excellent.
as to your recent lock up, you may have over looked the most common reason - MS, or should I say, Windows.
sometimes what happened on your 'newish' PC just happens, no rhyme, no reason - BOOM, thank you very much MS.
mind you, it could just as easily be hardware, if I do see lock up issues, more often than not, it's with a PC coming out of a power-save state.
Thanks for the Panda recommendation.
For a firewall, free would be better. I used ZoneAlarm free a long time ago, it was good but not easily configured in those days. Am also considering Jetico firewall, now offered free. It is well recommended.
Sure would be nice to find a firewall with the "auto-learn" feature that was so handy in Outpost.
I haven't kept up, they may all have that now.
Fwiw, windows updates were turned off long before this issue started.
"BOOM, thank you very much MS." Could be, it is after all windows, but that is low on the probability scale, imho, because the old computer ran for 10+ years without this lockup issue, and the new-ish computer for a few years. That's why I guess something important has changed.
Login make sure you read the system requirements of Avast to know if it's actually compatible with XP.
Earlier this year in August I had to dump Avira for Panda, due to Avira still fetching program updates but those updates were causing nothing but problems due to incompatibility with XP.
I'm still using Avast (free) although I've frozen the program itself at Version 6.0.1367.
Haven't ever needed all the bells and whistles that program updates brought, and the important parts, the Engine and Virus Definitions, are still updated daily and I might add, flawlessly.
Never had an issue that I can recollect from many years of use.
And although I experimented with one or two "Two Way" firewalls many years ago, I went back to XP's own firewall and have stuck faithfully with it. A one way barrier, but combined with Avast, utterly reliable now for 10 years.
Thanks, Dennis. I have always let Avast update the program whenever it wanted to. But you're right about the bells & whistles, and I still have the old installers. Andavari, the avast site says right now that it is compatible with xp but I'm gonna keep checking.
What about a firewall, Andavari?
Not sure if a hard drive error could be the problem here. If so, it might be the same on the newer computer because HP shipped it with a faulty HDD, and when the tech fixed it under warranty he didn't replace it, probably just ran chkdsk
Just ran gsmartcontrol 2 minute test. Not sure I like that stuff about Old_age, and Pre-fail.
Results:
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Blue EIDE
Device Model: WDC WD2500AAJB-00J3A0
Serial Number:
LU WWN Device Id:
Firmware Version: 01.03E01
User Capacity: 250,059,350,016 bytes [250 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 1
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 144 136 021 Pre-fail Always - 3758
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always - 9328
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 076 076 000 Old_age Always - 18033
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 091 091 000 Old_age Always - 9266
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 237
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 197 197 000 Old_age Always - 9329
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 109 099 000 Old_age Always - 34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
can you do that Speccy thing Willy mentioned from the other post?
it's much kinder on the eyes.
but from those stats, nothing pops out as alarming.
Computers produced for personal use have a certain lifespan. In particular the main piece where data is stored the "hard disk” has a rotating disc that contains a very sensitive device that does about a thousand cycles per min. Drives are like old records, spinning in a magnetic vacuum. They are very sensitive instruments, suffering sudden blows while moving will greatly damage them. And when the life span assigned to them is taken into account (which can be estimated by the warranty period) the possibility of losing data is a threat that cannot be ignored.