Lockups

I recently did a fatory-restore on my laptop. I then installed some windows updates. Now my computer will run for about 30 minutes (sometimes more, sometimes less) and then completely lock up. Anyone have any suggestions? I am running xp home.

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I recently did a fatory-restore on my laptop. I then installed some windows updates. Now my computer will run for about 30 minutes (sometimes more, sometimes less) and then completely lock up. Anyone have any suggestions? I am running xp home.

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There are a few things you could check...
 
Most of the times, repetitive computer lockups are due to ACPI problems.
When you say after 30 minutes, is it 30 minutes idle or when working on it?
In the Power Management icon in Control Panel check settings like automatic standby of such...
Is your laptop a Compaq or Toshiba? Those needs special drivers becauses their ACPI management is different from a standard PC but the Windows XP installation will not see the difference...
Ultimately check in the Device Manager under the computer tab which time of computer has been detected...
 
Hope that does help a little bit

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Quote:There are a few things you could check...

Most of the times, repetitive computer lockups are due to ACPI problems.
When you say after 30 minutes, is it 30 minutes idle or when working on it?
In the Power Management icon in Control Panel check settings like automatic standby of such...
Is your laptop a Compaq or Toshiba? Those needs special drivers becauses their ACPI management is different from a standard PC but the Windows XP installation will not see the difference...
Ultimately check in the Device Manager under the computer tab which time of computer has been detected...

Hope that does help a little bit

Thanks for the response. It occurs on average about 30 minutes while I am using the machine. If I flip the screen down (thus turning the display off) and let it sit for a while, more often then not when I come back to it the screen is black but I can still see the outline of the windows on the screen. I am using a Sony VAIO laptop and I did the factory restore so the drivers should not be a problem since they worked before. I will check the device manager when I get off work today.

Thanks.

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Quote:I had problems like that with earlier builds of the NVidia Detonators family, circa 30.87 (this was fine, but early 4x.xx builds were not) but after that build, the early 40's sucked for me, gave me infinite nvdisp.dll errors, & lockups ALOT like what you describe.

My verdict?

Video driver...

(But, that's based on my system & my mix of programs, OS, & data as well!)

*

APK

That is something that i Have not updated that was updated on my previous setup. I will try that as well.

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Well I updated the video drivers and that did not help a bit. I was not sure where the ACPI settings were so I deleted a few power related devices in my device manager. I believe that may have taken care of it. I have not used my computer all that much since I did that though.

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Quote:Quote:Well I updated the video drivers and that did not help a bit.

Yup, might & might not... but worth doing.

Quote:I was not sure where the ACPI settings were so I deleted a few power related devices in my device manager. I believe that may have taken care of it. I have not used my computer all that much since I did that though.

As long as it works? It works... & it's " all good " & all that!



APK

Well it did crash on me last night, but it was sitting on my bed so it could have been a heat problem. The moblie xp 1700 gets REAL hot.

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So it's still happening. It crashed about 5 minutes after booting. Any other suggestions? How do I go about checking for ACPI problems?

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Is there anything in the Event Logs?
 
AndyF

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Quote:Quote:So it's still happening. It crashed about 5 minutes after booting. Any other suggestions? How do I go about checking for ACPI problems?

Ok... how about Heat as well?

We are back @ 90° F ++ days here & I am hitting crashes myself if I leave myself overclocked (I have digital gauges that are mounted to my CPU's with leads that show my CPU's topping 100° - 110° F because of it).

* I have to go back to normal CPU speeds to NOT crash out, & that means no gaming (or, other "heavy-duty" type tasks) during that type of heat, to not crash.



(I like summer-time, but not for computing).

APK

I am not overclcoking nor doing anything computer intensive. Since it crashed 5 minutes after booting and it was not physically hot, I dont think heat is a problem. I have a feeling it is driver related for some device but I am not sure which one.

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Quote:Quote:Quote:
So it's still happening. It crashed about 5 minutes after booting. Any other suggestions? How do I go about checking for ACPI problems?
Ok... how about Heat as well?

We are back @ 90° F ++ days here & I am hitting crashes myself if I leave myself overclocked (I have digital gauges that are mounted to my CPU's with leads that show my CPU's topping 100° - 110° F because of it).

* I have to go back to normal CPU speeds to NOT crash out, & that means no gaming (or, other "heavy-duty" type tasks) during that type of heat, to not crash.



(I like summer-time, but not for computing).

APK

I am not overclcoking nor doing anything computer intensive. Since it crashed 5 minutes after booting and it was not physically hot, I dont think heat is a problem. I have a feeling it is driver related for some device but I am not sure which one.

No EventLog error messages to help clue you into which one & zero in on it?

* I agree, sounds like beat driver...

APK

I don't know much about the event log.

I am thinking also that I have a cooling problem. I am just going to put the $200 that I spent on my warrenty to use.

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Quote:Quote:I don't know much about the event log.

Ah... boy, you may be in for a treat then... EventLog IS your pal believe it or not!

Run Computer Mgt. tool, & see the System & Application eventlogs, they may clue you into a software bug!

If not, send any messages from it to the OEM of the potentially offending driver or program. Then, updates may issue (or maybe not, but worth a shot).

I'll check it out.

Quote:
Quote:I am thinking also that I have a cooling problem. I am just going to put the $200 that I spent on my warrenty to use.

You could do that, you're right... but, cooling is relatively cheap too! Fans are easy enough to install, & so is a GOOD copper heatsink + Arctic Silver II or better application as well.

I put so many fans of large radius & high RPM (CPU ones are 8,000 rpm + 51.1 cfm displacement) here, my system can be heard thru my home & for a great distance out of my windows outside... lol, this does not wash with most folks in noise terms, but I can live with it here.

I also put heatinks & fans on most of the major controller chips in my system, RAM too, + case hole drilled intake & exhalation ones as well... worth it here, to be able to overclock.

(It did get expensive though, but I went WAY overboard looking back now in hindsight, it was experimentation really!)

Heh, you should see a pic of the cooling setup on my GeForce 4 Ti4600... lol, large copper CPU heatsink took the place of the std. puny cooler on it, with a 23cfm fan topping it + the RAM chips on it have 486 heatsinks + fans on them!

(There's pics of it in the HARDWARE "What computer part did you buy" post iirc...)

Yes, a "wee-bit" outrageous, in that the cooling for it eats 2 PCI slots space up, but allows TREMENDOUS video card overclocks as well.

The slots I ate up, I sold the cards for, & opted for external USB sound, & WinTV32 external USB.

The REALLY neat part, performance wise of the use of USB was this:

1.) Because of the use of the external USB Extigy sound from Creative vs. their old SB16 PCI I used before, is that I can turn my PCI latency down from 32 stock in motherboard BIOS tunings to 8, & this used to mess up my old SoundBlaster-16 PCI card, no sound, this is not the case with my Extigy from Creative also...

2.) & WinTV32 USB external works as well as my old internal card from Hauppauge (both came from them) as well as internal did.

* I think I spent nearly $100 on cooling for this rig alone on CPU's, vidcard, major chips on mobo, RAM, case mod fans, drive coolers, & drive bay intakes too.

APK

P.S.=> Yes, it was "expensive cooling overkill" but the bennies showed... this system was a 'pet-project' in cooling besides other things... apk

The machine I am talking about is a laptop so the do-it-yourself cooling options are limited. Besides, I am starting to think that a fan is not working and something got too hot and burned out. The overheat protection kicked in last night where there should have been pleanty of air-flow.

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Quote:Quote:The overheat protection kicked in last night where there should have been pleanty of air-flow.

Then, it's heat as I secondly suspected it looks like...



* Good luck in any event, & I hope you don't have to go thru the RMA exchange process... I had to wait 12 weeks one year (2001) for one on this motherboard outta Taiwan!



APK

Yeah hopefully not. I bought it from Circuit City and paid for their extended warrenty service. Hopefully they'll just give me a new one. Its a year old so I doubt they still carry it.

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Quote:Quote:Yeah hopefully not. I bought it from Circuit City and paid for their extended warrenty service. Hopefully they'll just give me a new one. Its a year old so I doubt they still carry it.

You'll get one of equal value probably of whatever they have there in stock most likely.



* That might work out just fine then for you...

APK

P.S.=> I know that's what CompUSA does for vidcards, so it's probably the same deal with Circuit City & mobos too odds are... apk

Buying videocards at compusa can amount to renting them with an initial deposit. What I Have done for the past 3 years id buy a card with the warrenty, when you get close to the 1 year mark take it back and say it doesn't work. They will give you the full purchase value back and you can use it to buy another card. Its a pretty good deal, especially with something that changes as often as video cards. They do hike up the price about 30% more then newegg will have them for though.

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OK I have finally checked out the event logs. This is what is happening. The EAPOL application (whatever that is) will start up successfully and then the "True Vector Engine" will fail. This is the message it gives.
 
The description for Event ID ( 1 ) in Source ( True Vector Engine ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: .
 
Anyone know what this means or what exactly these applications do?