Pc Freezes. Why?

[Jockstar]

Hey guys, hope someone can help. Ok i thought my PC was freezing due to the new game i installed. ie Half Life 2. But it done this yesterday aswell when i tried to do a virus scan. Didnt think too much about it until it done it again. This time it was when i was writing a document on word. Not just once but twice. Very annoying as its an important doc. So any ideas why this is doing it? Maybe a virus? I cant scan the Pc though. As i said before it froze on virus scan. Any help would be great. Cheers!

[Darknight]

Hey guys, hope someone can help. Ok i thought my PC was freezing due to the new game i installed. ie Half Life 2. But it done this yesterday aswell when i tried to do a virus scan. Didnt think too much about it until it done it again. This time it was when i was writing a document on word. Not just once but twice. Very annoying as its an important doc. So any ideas why this is doing it? Maybe a virus? I cant scan the Pc though. As i said before  it froze on virus scan. Any help would be great. Cheers!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can be many things

Pc to hot inside,

Bad memory

Power supply failing on processor power

virusses, spyware, bad OS, apllication chnged a dll with install and it doesn't work for another app anymore, ect..

Start with opening your box and leave it working without it's jacket, especially if you're not in a aircon room.

[joka]

is this pc very old?

[Jockstar]

is this pc very old?

I've had it for a year. But it was 2nd hand when i bought it. But everything was upgraded within the year before i bought it. Never had any problems before. Seems to be ok when i'm on the Net but freezes when i'm doing something offline. ie playing a game, writing a doc or even when i try and do a virus scan.

[Darknight]

could also be beginning of Hard disk failure, when you do the scan you read the complete disk, it could hang on that also

[Jockstar]

could also be beginning of Hard disk failure, when you do the scan you read the complete disk, it could hang on that also

Ok lets say it is this. then how do i find out for defo and what are my options? Maybe buy new disk? How much for this?

[slimdog]

Hi Jockstar

Whilst it could be a virus or problem with your harddrive it would be advisable to check the more obvious first.

You said that your computer was running fine until you installed a game, since then the computer has been locking up. The most common reason for a computer to lock up is that you have run out of resources (memory). One of the reasons for this could be that the game has taken some of the resources at start-up, leaving you with virtually nothing left.

You don't mention what your o/s is, but two options:

1. If you have set up "Restore" and have an earlier date then you could try this

approach.

another way would be (win98,Me not sure about xp):

2. Go into accesories

Click on system tools

Click on system information

This should tell you what your % of free resources are. If it is low then:

Click on tools

Click on sytem configuration utility (New window will open)

Click on startUp

This will give you a list of all the programs that start up when you boot up the computer. Next to each one will be a small box.

If you see any mention of the game (halflife) uncheck the box and click "Apply"

Restart your computer and hopefully it will run as before.

[britmaveric]

Time to time always good to wipe out os and reformat the hard drive. Might clear up your problems or as DK indicated could be heat issue.

[cdnvic]

Boot it into safe mode (F8) at startup. Then run scandisk, and defragment your drive before going to the trouble of a full reformat. I've seen tons of people do formats or buy new disks when all they needed was to defragment.

Always try the simple things first.

cv

[penzman]

Try shutting down the half-life 2 icon next to your clock on the bottm right (right click, exit). It is a software that's installed with the game and it's probably running every time you start up the computer. My pc had the hiccups when it was running.

You can go in the game or Steam software's options menu and select the option where this program will not start automatically when windows kicks in.

[cobra]

Hey guys, hope someone can help. Ok i thought my PC was freezing due to the new game i installed. ie Half Life 2. But it done this yesterday aswell when i tried to do a virus scan. Didnt think too much about it until it done it again. This time it was when i was writing a document on word. Not just once but twice. Very annoying as its an important doc. So any ideas why this is doing it? Maybe a virus? I cant scan the Pc though. As i said before  it froze on virus scan. Any help would be great. Cheers!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Could be a driver issue with Half Life, I'll assume you OS is Win 2000 or XP,

For a sanity check, uninstall Half Life and see if that was the problem. If your machine is still locking up open Task Manager and see what processes are running, a lot of things will run shadow apps (for up-dating, pre- loading, etc), all these eat away at resources (ie, memory).

Stop any that look unfamilair, if you find a backround application thats causing a problem you can run "msconfig" and disable it from there.

Also take a peek at your "Events Viewer", (control panel>administrative tools> Event Viewer), look at the system and application log and see what your machine was doing right before it crashed, look for a pattern,

Most of the time it's usually software, not an hardware issue.

Good Luck

[stumonster]

turn the power off, take the cover off and inspect the heatsink on your processor - if it is full of dust , blow very hard

heat is a big cause of your comp just "freezing"

[cdnvic]

turn the power off,  take the cover off and inspect the heatsink on your processor - if it is full of dust , blow very hard

heat is a big cause of your comp just "freezing"

I thought this over and darknight and Stumonster are probably right that this is the cause. If the game is heavy on graphics its also quite likely to be very CPU intensive which would cause extra heat. If you don't have a heatsink on it I'd get one, along with a better fan. Neither will cost you much.

Don't know what kind of knowlage you have about computers but this is what you are looking for: Fan & Heatsink

If your cpu is overheating you may have trouble with the power supply doing it as well if its an environmetal problem. Try to keep your PC out of the sun and in a cool room.

Hope this all helps.

cv

[chanchao]

> everything was upgraded within the year before i bought it.

Bet that didn't include upgrading the power supply. Or fans, for that matter. If a fan breaks, it will overheat and crash, so that's another thing to check.

Here's a simple idea to check if your problem is hardware related (overheating, memory, etc) or software (Windows itself) :

Get something like this and see if it runs reliably:

www.mepis.com

It's a Linux installation that runs completely off one CD-ROM (also boots from it). So it completely doesn't affect your hard drive, doesn't require you to install anything; you can just insert the disc and run it. If it runs reliably then you have a Windows problem and the most straightforward way to fix it would be to re-install Windows clean.

Cheers,

Chanchao

[ZOVOX]

Hey guys, hope someone can help. Ok i thought my PC was freezing due to the new game i installed. ie Half Life 2. But it done this yesterday aswell when i tried to do a virus scan. Didnt think too much about it until it done it again. This time it was when i was writing a document on word. Not just once but twice. Very annoying as its an important doc. So any ideas why this is doing it? Maybe a virus? I cant scan the Pc though. As i said before  it froze on virus scan. Any help would be great. Cheers!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't do nothing drastic like buying new hardware, or calling in experts technicians yet. The fact that your problem started after this game was crashing on you, probably means these crashes screwed up your system and there's a good chance you can fix it yourself . Firstly, uninstall the game, and if that doesn't work, backup all you personal files and reinstall windows. If you are running win xp, you can also try restoring a previous boot-up.

[fisherd3]

I downloaded this piece of freeware which monitors motherboard and case temperature in system tray, may help you monitor temperature

Motherboard monitor - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311

Search freeware on this subject page for stacks more.

Edited January 19, 2005 by fisherd3

[penzman]

He did say that the pc froze when using MS Word only.

I really suspect it's because of Half Life 2 Steam software running in the background. Disable the software or uninstall the game before thinking hardware.

[francois]

hi'

my small 2b here ...

wich word do you use? 2000, xp, 2003?

some service pack are available, one for office 2003 is related to word which freeze or induces a computer crash ...something to do with grafics,

you may uninstall half-life from where it is ( C drive is it?) and install it on a diffrent partition (D, E ...)

you'll just need to make a custom install and specify the install path.

download sp for office and install ...

give some news

francois

[fatter than harry]

Good idea about checking the basic things first, I called in the company IT guy to clean a virus off my computer last Friday, computer was doing very wierd things - turned out I'd wedged my old keyboard's 'enter' key against the table (Have had groovy infa-red keyboard for two months now, never unplugged old one)

Assshat that I am.

[Jockstar]

Ok. Just a follow up. Got home from work today and the first thing i done was open up my PC. i blew all the dust out. Though there wasn't alot. Last night i spent hours going through my Pc and deleting files which i dont use or have no idea what they were. Nothing from Xp i might add. Then after cleaning the Pc today. I done a adware scan. Cleaned that out. Then deleted Half Life 2. Done a defragmentation on the Pc. Finally followed by a virus scan. found a couple of wanted things. But nothing major. So obviously it was probably the game that was causing this. I really want to play the game. I havent installed it again yet. Will do that tomorrow. Is it possible to instal the game into my D drive as thats got more free space. 90 odd % compared to my C drive which has 43%. If i can install to D then do you think that i will have less chance of problems as there is more space? Any ideas guys. Thanks.

[slimdog]

Providing you have enough hard disk space there should be no problem in installing the game on either c or d drive. There are a few things you could do which may help.

(a) If given the option in Set-Up or in game options when the game is installed, try and make sure the game does not start in the task bar on Start-Up of your computer. If not given the option then do as I said in an earlier post. The game will still start up fine when you click on the games icon either on your desktop or Start menu.

( If you are still having problems after loading the game or playing the game you might get slightly better results by freeing up some of your remaining memory, one way would be to disable any anti-virus software prior to playing the game. Restarting the computer will re-enable it.

© Purchase some more memory

Hope you enjoy the game

[penzman]

Providing you have enough hard disk space there should be no problem in installing the game on either c or d drive. There are a few things you could do which may help.

(a) If given the option in Set-Up or in game options when the game is installed, try and make sure the game does not start in the task bar on Start-Up of your computer. If not given the option then do as I said in an earlier post. The game will still start up fine when you click on the games icon either on your desktop or Start menu.

( If you are still having problems after loading the game or playing the game you might get slightly better results by freeing up some of your remaining memory, one way would be to disable any anti-virus software prior to playing the game. Restarting the computer will re-enable it.

© Purchase some more memory

Hope you enjoy the game

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is exactly how I solved my problem.

[Jockstar]

Providing you have enough hard disk space there should be no problem in installing the game on either c or d drive. There are a few things you could do which may help.

(a) If given the option in Set-Up or in game options when the game is installed, try and make sure the game does not start in the task bar on Start-Up of your computer. If not given the option then do as I said in an earlier post. The game will still start up fine when you click on the games icon either on your desktop or Start menu.

( If you are still having problems after loading the game or playing the game you might get slightly better results by freeing up some of your remaining memory, one way would be to disable any anti-virus software prior to playing the game. Restarting the computer will re-enable it.

© Purchase some more memory

Hope you enjoy the game

This is exactly how I solved my problem.

I disabled McAfee and then tried to play the game. It works for a short time. But once again it freezes and i have to start the PC. Ahhhhh! Getting really pissed off with this. I had less hassle with the copy. This is the original. Anymore suggestions? Maybe i need to upgrade my Pc. But thats gonna cost 10K. I currently use Xp with 40GB, 256MB.Pentium 3. Is this maybe not enough? Any suggestions.

[cdnvic]

Ahhhhh! Getting really pissed off with this. I had less hassle with the copy. This is the original. Anymore suggestions? Maybe i need to upgrade my Pc. But thats gonna cost 10K. I currently use Xp with 40GB, 256MB.Pentium 3. Is this maybe not enough? Any suggestions.

Does your video card have enough memory?

Check to see the minimum requirements for video ram.

cv

[Jockstar]

Ahhhhh! Getting really pissed off with this. I had less hassle with the copy. This is the original. Anymore suggestions? Maybe i need to upgrade my Pc. But thats gonna cost 10K. I currently use Xp with 40GB, 256MB.Pentium 3. Is this maybe not enough? Any suggestions.

Does your video card have enough memory?

Check to see the minimum requirements for video ram.

cv

I have a Geforce FX 5900 graphics card. How do i check for its memory? I think it should have no problems dealing with this game.

[cdnvic]

I have a Geforce FX 5900 graphics card. How do i check for its memory? I think it should have no problems dealing with this game.

It has 128mb, that should be fine for anything out there.

I looked around and found a place dealing with these freezing problems when using half life 2. It's pretty extensive so rather than repost I'll just link it for ya.

http://www.blep.net/hl2stutter/

Good luck

cv

[penzman]

Ahhhhh! Getting really pissed off with this. I had less hassle with the copy. This is the original. Anymore suggestions? Maybe i need to upgrade my Pc. But thats gonna cost 10K. I currently use Xp with 40GB, 256MB.Pentium 3. Is this maybe not enough? Any suggestions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Does your video card have enough memory?

Check to see the minimum requirements for video ram.

cv

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have a Geforce FX 5900 graphics card. How do i check for its memory? I think it should have no problems dealing with this game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

AMD Duron 1.2mhz, 512MB RAM, GeForce MX400(64MB)

[Jockstar]

Ahhhhh! Getting really pissed off with this. I had less hassle with the copy. This is the original. Anymore suggestions? Maybe i need to upgrade my Pc. But thats gonna cost 10K. I currently use Xp with 40GB, 256MB.Pentium 3. Is this maybe not enough? Any suggestions.

Does your video card have enough memory?

Check to see the minimum requirements for video ram.

cv

I have a Geforce FX 5900 graphics card. How do i check for its memory? I think it should have no problems dealing with this game.

AMD Duron 1.2mhz, 512MB RAM, GeForce MX400(64MB)

Sorry Penz. But how does that help me? Checked out that link from cdnvic. It seems many people have had this problem. Though there is no 100 % fix. Very very annoying.