XP Freezing

Hi,

I have an old HP Compaq Presario v2100 notebook. It has a 1.8Ghz centrino processor 1.5 GB of installed RAM. I am running XP home with SP2 in it. Off late I have been having many problems with it. Two of them really irritates me.

1) Some times when I try to shut down my windows it simply wont shut down. The machine doesnt freeze.. but just refuses to shut down. The only way shut down would work then is by pressing and holding the powerbutton.

2) my machine just freezes for no reason. I dont play any games. some times it freezes even when I just have a word file or pdf file opened. Freezing as such has no relation with the kind of program I am working with. It randomly decides to freeze for God knows what reason. Then restarting the machine would be the only solution. Almost every day I use my laptop for 10-12 hours and some days it never freeze. some days it freezes 5-6 times..

I use kaspersky antivirus and webroot spysweeper.. Machine is free of any viruses or spywares... I also do diskdefragmenting once a while... all the drivers are uptodate.. can some one tell me whether this is a hardware problem or not.. what could be some possible solutions? any ideas would be highly appreciated..

 

Well, it's a Windows. I highly suggest that you reinstall the operating system if you still have the XP discs. There's not much more that can be done to solve this problem.

 

I had done one clean install a couple of week ago... the problem existed even before that though at a much lesser scale.. but not is very frequent.. Are sure it can not be a hardware problem... for example, Hard Drive not fully functional, something like that...

 

Thanks baserk.

If I have two RAM sticks do I have to do do the test for One at a time? I mean keeping only one RAM stick on the slot at a time?

How do I find the hard disk manufacturer?

 

After you've tried Baserk's method, try cleaning your laptop out.

My guess is that it's full of dust, dander, and debris that's causing your components to overheat and thus slowdown and/or freeze.

-Mike

 

Hmm. though my laptop is 3 year old, I still thought it was pretty clean.. but in any case, I dont feel the over heat even when it sits on my lap... Moreover, this freezing problem occurs at random times.. some times within minutes of turning the laptop on. But still I guess I need to clean it up.. do you have any suggestions on cleaning it.. I mean, do I have to take the key board out. opening up the laptop literally....!!!

 

Thanks for the help guys...

Under device manager>Disk Drives>
when I click on the properties on the disk and check the Hardware Ids what is see something like below:

IDE\DiskST9808210A____________________
ST9808210A______________3.02__
GenDisk

Does it mean disk manufacturer is GenDisk? Have never heard of such a manufacturer.
A search for the number ST9808210A took me to Seagate....

 

if you have never actually cleaned the inside of your laptop in 3 years, then i also say this is the problem. dust can conduct electricity so it makes perfect sense that there are random shutdowns if your machine is choked with dustbunnies internally.

a good thorough cleaning means opening the machine up, not just blowing an air can into the vents. if it's really bad, all you'll do is blow some dust out, but simply move most of the dust around inside.

 

I tested my RAM with memtest and shows zero errors. Also cleaned up the laptop.... switched it on today... sofar no problems....If this problem reappears can I safely assume that its windows issue and go for a reinstall again?

 

When you say freezes, you mean the mouse too? If so, I had that before in my desktop and it was actually the motherboard (not sure which part, but a new one solved the problem). Hopefully that's not your case. And on the other hand, if you are able to run tests, I guess it shouldn't be. You can download (for free), a Linux version that work from the pendrive, or from a CD (no need to install). I guess if you can run it and do stuff with it without freezing, then the problem shouldn't be a hardware issue. Except the hard drive I guess.

 

Yes when it freezes it freezes the mouse too.. thats the first thing I notice in fact. Only when I realize that my mouse just doesnt move, would I realize that the machine has frozen and nothing moves on the screen... how can I check if it is a mother board problem.. I have noticed that even today it had this problem twice already inspite of all the checks I did... since this problem occurs completely random intervals, how can I check it with a linux CD. I do have a Ubuntu bootable CD with me. But wondering how long will I have to run the Linux to realize it? one whole day...? any other ways I can check if mother board is fine?

 

Did everything possible. As a last step I even went ahead and did a complete clean install. I did the clean install three days back and for two days it did not create any problems. But today again it went freezing two times...
No idea what next.. someone please help............. Is it the mother board thats screwed up?

 

Its funny because i had these same problems a few weeks ago when i was running on XP Pro, but my freezes ended up with a blue screen which pointed to RAM, Faulty Hard Drive Sectors, or a Faulty Hard Drive Controller.

If this is the case here, after testing your RAM and Formating several times, and due to the nature of a format even bad sectors would have been activated. So it is quite possible the controller is shot, and yes that is on your motherboard.

However that is just a theory based on my experiences with these ocurances... but it is something to consider.