M50 (F4U) A8187 P4 - 3 gighz - 2Gb of Ram freezes randomly

[Hessian]

Hello all,

New to this forum. I purchased two of these machines so my parents and I would have identical PC's. Generally I am happy with them, but for this freezing that continues. Both PC's have this same symptom. I have been spending a lot of time trying to track it down on my PC. I was hoping to find it, then I could fix the other PC. Here are some of the things I have done:

Once the Symantec trial was done, I used their removal tool to get it off the PC

Currently, mostly for the sake of working on this problem, I only have Defender working.

No firewall right now, just a router.

I was looking in the case and saw there were (2) 256 dimms and (1) 512 dimm that made up the 1Gb of memory. I know this should work ok, but I was wondering if the different speeds and different manufactures might be contributing to the problem. I also didn't like it, because it doesn't allow for dual channel to function. I purchased (2) 1Gb Corsair dimms and replaced what was in there. The dual channel works now and the extra memory is good, but it didn't fix the problem.

A friend let me barrow a known good AGP card to use just to see if getting off the system board graphics would do the trick. It didn't fix it either.

Have the latest drivers that I am aware are available for this PC.

Went through msconfig and determined everything I could that I could not start.

Went through the event viewer and fixed any errors that were showing in there. There weren't very many.

Used the Windows XP Pro services list (just the safe column) on BlackVipers site to shut off as many services as possible. No luck there.

I have un-installed as much of the IBM software as possible. There might be one left that I can see.

I am at a loss now. I am hoping that someone out there might know what I can do next to try and fix this. I have worked on IBM PC's for a long time at work and never had one that would just freeze like this. Much less two PC's with the same problem. I am wondering if the security chip might be a problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Take care,

Craig 

[netnubar]

Hey Hessian,

What actually happens when your machine freezes... does it become unusable for a moment or do you have to reboot to get it unstuck?

It might be an idea to keep the "processes" window of the task manager open and on top of everything else to see what's running and putting a demand on the processor when the freeze happens.  Remember to adjust the size of the processes "window" so you can see all the processes at one shot.

And, do you have the most recent BIOS installed?

[Hessian]

Hello Netnubar,

The freeze up requires a reboot. I have tried all of the keys to see if anything happens (i.e... Num Lock light, Caps Lock light, ctl-alt-delete etc etc nothing is functional). It has happened while using the PC and when it is just idle with no screen saver.

I will try keeping the processes window up and see if it will shed some light on this. I may also use Microsofts process explorer and see if that will show something also.

The BIOS is:

IBM 2AKT51AUS

ver: 73.66

date: 7/6/2005

I am not sure if that is the latest BIOS available.

There is something else that is curious. I see a button on the inside rear just at the top of the frame. There is a small metal piece on the cover that pushes it down. The two wires go from the switch to a very small circuit board near the front left side of the system board. Front meaning looking at the front of the PC. Not sure what that little board is. Maybe it is IBMs security chip, although I have no idea how it would work. I have run the machine with the covers off. Perhaps it is disabled in BIOS.

I appreciate your interest and any help you may be able to offer. Thank you for your time with this.

Take care,

Craig

[netnubar]

Hello Craig,

Yes, that is the latest BIOS available (see: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-51058).

I'll have a look for what the additional board you mentioned might be.

In the meantime, have you run PC-Doctor (or ToolBox).  I would, in addition to a general health check, test the memory.  If you don't have one or the other, go to:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=8187F4U

On the page that comes up, click 'Downloads and drivers' and then refine your results by selecting 'Diagnostic'.

Nate

[Hessian]

Hello Nate,

I am glad to hear I have the latest BIOS. Thank you for checking on it. I was looking around on the IBM/Lenovo site and found what appeared to be the latest ToolBox. I uninstalled the older PC Doctor that came with the PC and installed the newer ToolBox. It has turned out to be a nice tool. When I installed the (2) 1Gb Corsair memory dimms, I used it to make sure everything was working and recognized. The tests came back good. I also used a little tool called cpu-z to make sure the PC was now running in dual channel mode after the install. It was not running in dual channel mode with the memory configuration that came with the PC. The ToolBox, which I run pretty regularly, has shown the machine to be in good health. There are a couple of items it doesn't like. All related to some security things I have currently turned off.

I have looked around on the IBM/Lenovo site a bit, but could not find what I would call a very detailed schematic of the system board for this PC. Do you happen to know if there is one available somewhere? I found a generic diagram that showed the slots, bays and power supply plus a couple of other things. I was thinking a detailed schematic might show what that little board is and the switch that is wired to it.

Thank you for hanging in there with this issue.

Take care,

Craig

[netnubar]

Hey Craig,

Unfortunately, I've not been able to find a detailed schematic for your box.  But I'll be sure to let you know if I have any other ideas .

Message Edited by netnubar on 01-09-2009 09:16 PM