Topic: locking up...

[agua-moose]

alright guys i'm hoping you can shed some light on a problem i'm having.

i got a load of old bits off a mate real cheap so i could finally get rid of my parents p200 they've been using for years.

so i built it up and it keeps locking up quite often. it only seems to happen when on the internet. at first i thought it was overheating but when i re-set it straight away, it will still go for a while and then lock up after like 10 minutes or so.

then i thought it might be a irq conflict so i disabled the soundcard and com2 to free up some irqs. i relocated the modem to a different pci slot because it was sharing with the graphics card which i thought might be the cause. so now the graphics card is on irq11, the modem on 10 and usb on 5. everything else is how it should be. but it still locked up

so then i noticed there was an unknown pci device in the device manager. so i installed the via 4in1 drivers which sorted that out. but it still locked up  >

so then i tried another modem and it still locks up!  > :'(

any ideas what to try next? or do you think it is just overheating? it's just strange it seems to work fine for a while afterwards, i would expect it to lock up straight away if it was too hot? btw the cpu temp seems to stay around 46degrees. i don't know if thats good or bad?

cheers.

[Camstop]

Hi agua-moose and  

I'm sorry i ain't a techie but can you post the spec of the pc and what operating system you are using and i'm sure someone will be along to help you shortly...

Just of the top of my head it may be worth trying to reconfigure your ram..

[agua-moose]

thanks for the welcome

sorry, the spec is:
athlon 800 (10x100mhz)
128meg ram 100mhz (all in one slot)
4gig hdd
Nvidia tnt2 32meg video card
onboard sound (disabled in bios)
some generic 56k modem

i know it's not too good, but a bargain at £65 along with a 17inch monitor, printer, usb digital radio, and a p2 300 base unit too!

interestingly today it kept saying it couldn't find a dial tone so i tried absolutely everything i could think. then i put another modem in and it found the dial tone fine and i'm currently writing this post on it. i hope it doesn't lock up now  

[agua-moose]

sorry, how do you mean re-configure the ram?

ps - i forgot to mention i checked the heatsink and fan too. it's all ok.

hasn't locked up yet!

[Camstop]

Well if it's just one slot you could try it in another slot and make sure it is seated well or even just try reseating it.

[Simon]

I ain't a techie either (we do have some somewhere!), but have you tried reseating the graphics card, or have you another you can try?  Might also be worth refitting the heatsink and fan, just to make certain of good contact with the CPU.

[Sandra]

Can you confirm that it never locks up if you are not connected via modem ?
Also can you tell us which OS you are using please  

[agua-moose]

situation update:

just after my last post yesterday i got an error box saying there was some kind of kernel error and then the weirdest thing happened, all the phones in my house just started ringing continuously! so i quickly whipped the modem lead out the pc and shut it down which stopped the phones ringing. then i took the modem out the pc completely and plugged it back into the phone line and the phones rang again! so the modem is fried. also the modem that was initially in it won't detect a dialing tone anymore I have tried using different modem leads which i know for a fact work perfectly well.

i've never seen anything like it before in my life, its so weird. i don't want to try another modem for fear of it getting fried too. what can i do? i have checked the heatsink/fan contact with the cpu and it's good. i haven't tried re-locating the ram but now i don't have a modem to try anyway. before all this happened, i left it on for ages not connected to the net, played a few games of solitaire and also did a full defrag on the hard disk with no problems.

aarghh  :'(

[agua-moose]

oh yeah sorry o/s is windows 98. not sure which edition though but i can find out tonight. but i won't be able to get back on here till i'm at work tomorrow.

[agua-moose]

i just had a quick search of the net and found a couple of people with the same problem. the advice to them was that there were too many phones on one line and the REN value was too high. but mine was fine before so i can only deduce that somehow the pc has frazzled the circuitry in the modem so it now has a really high ren value, possibly shorted something out.

so now it's got me thinking maybe the problem is a dodgy psu or something? would that explain it?

[Adept]

Hi agua-moose

Sorry to hear of all your modem problems. Now that the modem is out of the PC, does it run reliably?

When you say you tried other modem leads, were they identical pinouts? AFAIK there are different modem lead standards, so it is possible that you need a different type. This may explain the phones ringing continuously

[agua-moose]

hmm i'm not sure on the pinouts but they were all being used on the previous pc with no problems at all.

i don't know how i can test if the pc is running ok without the modem in? if i installed a game and just played that for ages, would that be a good test? i don't have any office-y type programs as i only really use pcs for audio work so my personal one upstairs only has the absolute minimum software running and tweaked to get the most out of it.

i spoke to a few IT guys at work a while ago and the only thing they could suggest was that it had a virus which flashed the modem EPROM so it would do strange things. i don't see how this could happen as it's a completely fresh install and it's only been connected to the net successfully for a total of about 15 minutes on and off.

this really sucks! i try doing my parents a favour and now i've gone and fried their modem and still haven't got a new pc to work.

[Dack]

Just a few random bit that might be worth considering.

1. Modem is probably a software based one (most are these days). What country code is it set to? Different tones are used for 'busy' etc. in different countries (meaning it wouldn't 'hear' the busy/online tone). Its possible that the '15 minute' problem could be down to an out of date driver.

2. There are two different types of modem lead - one uses pins 1/4 and the other 2/3. Using the wrong lead causes all the phones to ring

3. If you've had a spike up the line then one of the capicitors on the modem will have blown (part of the circuit that checks for the ring tone). This usually leads to a 'no dial tone' message.

[agua-moose]

thanks everyone for all the sugestions so far. perhaps if i explain a bit about the modems i've been using it might clear a few things up...

ok modem A had been working perfectly in their old pc for over a year. it has been used with 2 different leads both of which worked fine too.

modem B came with this athlon 800. the guy who had it before said it had locked up on him occasionally in the past.

the first thing i did was use modem B to try the internet out. this connected fine first few times. it did lock up a few times with this modem but connection initially was fine. so to try and stop it locking up i put in modem A. this did exactly the same thing. connected fine but would lock up sometimes. so i tried changing things like irqs as described above with both modems. then modem B suddenly just refused to find a dial tone. so then i put modem A back in and it connected ok. then suddenly the pc crashed and all the phones rang. when it's not connected to the phone line, the pc still booted up ok and there were no hardware problems.

that's about as far as i've got with it. i am reluctant to go out and buy a new modem as i don't want it toasted too. but what else is there left to try?! i can only try what someone mentioned earlier and see if the pc works ok with no modems in. i will let you know what happens tomorrow.

thanks again, i realise this is a hectic problem which is not one of the "normal" ones which happen to lots of people. it just happens to me, as usual!

[Dack]

athlon 800 (10x100mhz)

So that would be overclocking it then?

Could be why your modem has been playing up.