old comp locking up

[aiel1]

hi i have an older comp amd k6 400 that locks up for no apparent reason(browsing the web, sitting there unused but on, ect). it used to lock up every 2 or 3 hours when it was all original parts now that i replaced the power supply it is only every 1 or 2 days. it has a fresh install of xp pro + sp2 , avg and all of the other basic stuff. no virus or spyware. Memtest 86 comes back with no errors.

specs:

amd k6 400 mhz
msi ms 5169 motherboard
32, 128 pc133 total 160mb ram
fijitsu mpd3108at 10gb hdd
creative cd 5233e 52x cdrom
d-link dfe-538tx 10/100 nic
3dfx Voodoo3 8mb
creative sb pci128 sound card
FORTRON FSP/SPI FSP300-60PN 300W ATX12V 20PIN

i know it is all old stuff but my mother-in-law doesnt want to spend any money on a new comp.

thanks

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Is it overheating? Give it a good clean out - dust is bad!

_____________________
<A HREF="http://snipurl.com/fxwr" target="_new">Welcome to the House of Horrors, welcome to the House of a 1000 Corpses</A>

 

[P4Man]

>i know it is all old stuff but my mother-in-law doesnt want
>to spend any money on a new comp.

Get a new mother in law

seriously though.. might worth checking the harddisk with a utility from Fujitsu. also worth checking for bad caps www.badcaps.com/ident though bad caps usually lead to reboots or BSOD rather than freezes.


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[TC10284]

Cummon Prozac....it's not as old as some I still have laying around that still work just fine...Speaking of it....I'm working with two K6-2 450MHz system as we speak...just to run BOINC on them though with a set of six Duron 700MHz systems...

Bad Capacitors are a possibility....check to see if any look bulged or leaking the electrolyte on the motherboard.
I agree with an above reply. Check to see if there is excessive dust build-up. Also, if that mobo does happen to have a thermal monitor, specifically for the CPU, tell us what the temp is by either looking in the CMOS setup or using something like Motherboard Monitor or SpeedFan.
Another thing I noticed about the K6-2's a few years ago: if you OC'd them even 50MHz (such as upping a 400MHz K6-2 to 450MHz), they most of the time would go crazy and crash in Windows randomly. Take off the heatsink/fan from the CPU and read the CPU code. You'll see a part of the code that will say "400" or "450"...that's the rated clock speed for the CPU of course. Make sure your mobo is running that K6-2 at the rated speed.

I would also try disabling/closing out of AVG temporarily just to see if that helps. Is there anything else running in the background that was installed after the fresh format?

One other thing I can think of to do in Windows to get a better idea of what's causing the crash (but won't help if the system's just locking up hard and not restarting), go into the System Properties, hit the Advanced tab, hit the Startup and Recovery button and uncheck the Automatically Restart check box. The next time your system crashes, Win XP will halt on the BSOD error and you'll be able to read what it says. Try to write down the (long) error code and the file that the error occurred in (if any) then try to search that on Google. If you do uncheck that and your system reboots randomly without pausing on a BSOD screen, then it is definitely hardware related.

Let us know...

Tavis Curry<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TC10284 on 08/01/05 08:21 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[dunklegend]

Showing it's age?

The comp? or the mother in law?

<b><font color=orange>Beauty is only skin deep, ugly goes to the bone.<font color=orange></b>

 

[apache_lives]

MSI - theres your issue, i get old second hand crap and i havnt had a working one yet.

Nah its prolly not MSI but i havnt had much luck with them or VIA, as everyone else says - check and clean the dust out, and check the CPU default speed - if yours is a 400 is should say like "AMD-K6-2/400AFX" or something similar, also check the settings. Otherwise ditch a stick of ram.

 

[TC10284]

lol Dunk..

Prozac - yep, that's definitely true!

Tavis Curry

 

[liquidpaper007]

that thing must move like a slug. xp is a memory HOG