On 8/6/07, Chris Kurecka <ckurecka@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > A simple test is to swap it. You mentioned having another PC. If the > > power supplies use the same connectors, you could try swapping them over > > and seeing if it makes any difference. > > I just stopped memtest86+ after letting it run for 8 hours. I haven't > used it before, but it looked like it would keep looping indefinitely > until stopped. On 1x1GB stick of RAM, it said it was running: > Test Pass Errors > ================= > Std 20 0 > > Which I assume means the memory is fine. > > I don't have any thermal paste offhand, so I'll try to get some. Are > there any retail stores (particularly ones in Southeast Michigan) that > might carry it? Or is it pretty much only available online? Also, is > there any particular type/brand I should be looking for? > > The PSU in my old machine is for a Dell micro-tower (Pentium 4HT > 2.4GHz). I think it's only 200-250W, a lot less than my current PSU, > but if the only risk is that it might not turn on, I can check and see > if it will fit in the tower in place of the current PSU. If there are > larger dangers, please warn me. I won't attempt it until at least > tonight, and haven't verified that they're compatible yet. > > At least the good news is it seems to have not frozen in about 10 > hours of being on, which is near the upper limit for me. I actually > took the case wall off and increased the A/C in my house though, which > I hope doesn't become the "solution." > > Thanks everyone, > > Chris > To reply to myself, a coworker is going to bring in some thermal paste (hopefully tomorrow) for me to try. He did tell me though that based on the fact that all the fans are good, the paste seemed pretty good, and more importantly that the CPU and disk go crazy when the system does freeze, he doesn't think that it's heat related. I should point out (and probably should have before), that every time I've gotten my PC to freeze has been while I'm using it, not when it's just sitting there, and it specifically happens immediately after either mouse or keyboard input - it seems to happen more often with the mouse, but I think just typing has triggered it as well. But it's from simple stuff like clicking or using the scroll wheel. Maybe even just moving the mouse. And then the system freezes, but the CPU monitor in the panel sometimes keeps going and shows 100% CPU use, and the disk light is going nuts. Sometimes though, the screen doesn't update and I don't see that. I'll keep looking into heat & power issues (especially since I need to fix the paste now regardless), but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that?
