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General discussion

System Freeze

Feb 22, 2004 11:45AM PST

I have been running W2000 for a couple of years now, and this is the second time I have had this problem.
Background info is: Running a PIII at 750Mhz, with Windows 2000 with virtual memory nearly at max, 256M RAM.
Today I defragmented for the first time after formatting, and, just like the last time I did this, if I leave my puter idle for any length of time, it refuses to respond to either the mouse or the keyboard, and the only solution seems to be rebooting from the button on the tower, as even control, ALT + delete has no effect at all.
Anyone out there ahve any ideas.

Discussion is locked

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Re:System Freeze
Feb 22, 2004 1:59PM PST

Install "end it all" from http://home.ptd.net/~don5408/toolbox/enditall/

Use this program to turn off all your running programs, than defrag. You can shut down everything including the locked files, the program will not let you shut down any necessary windows programs. This will allow you to defrag without any interruption.

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Re:System Freeze = The usual.
Feb 22, 2004 8:17PM PST

Many systems never get dusted out. You'll find an insulating layer of lint on the CPU heatsink and other places. The usual is to pull the case cover, remove the dust bunnies and then remove the fan, clean that space and then put the fan back on. Before putting the case on, a test run to see if all the fans are spinning well and if the problem subsides.

Bob

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Re:Re:System Freeze = The usual.
Mar 2, 2004 6:44PM PST

I was just going to suggest this. I had a similar problem in that a CPU fan had stopped working, I replaced it and it worked again. Warning, It will harm the CPU if you continue to run it without the fan.

Another job I've seen similar to this; was a faulty hard drive. When the computer tried to write or read from a certain sector of the hard drive, it crashed the system.