Lock ups -- why?

This question has been delayed as long as possible but I am at my wits end.

Would y'all give me some solid reasons my system would lock up? It is
running Windows XP Professional with plenty of RAM and disk space.

When I say "lock up", I mean everything freezes during a program operation
(doesn't seem to make any difference which program) and the only way to get
is started again is to power down and re-boot.

On rare occassions, it might power down before the freeze and then try to
re-boot but freeze during the re-boot at about the point of the Windows XP
screen which has the running blue dashes.

All of my drivers appear to be "working".

The Events Viewer, process, security or system, doesn't show any error at
the time of the lock-up.

I am not claiming it to be an operating system error, whether it is nor not.

If you have any USB devices connected, disconnect them, reboot and see if
the problem still occurs.

Jason

************************************************** ****
"Jack" wrote in message
...
This question has been delayed as long as possible but I am at my wits
end.

Would y'all give me some solid reasons my system would lock up? It is
running Windows XP Professional with plenty of RAM and disk space.

When I say "lock up", I mean everything freezes during a program operation
(doesn't seem to make any difference which program) and the only way to
get
is started again is to power down and re-boot.

On rare occassions, it might power down before the freeze and then try to
re-boot but freeze during the re-boot at about the point of the Windows XP
screen which has the running blue dashes.

All of my drivers appear to be "working".

The Events Viewer, process, security or system, doesn't show any error at
the time of the lock-up.

I am not claiming it to be an operating system error, whether it is nor
not.

Jason, Jim and Andrew, thanks to all of you.

Scans have been fine and I use AdWare.

My fear is and has been what Andrew has suggested. My guess is that it is
the hard drive as, when the computer freezes, the pitch of the sound of the
fan/hard drive lowers as if it is labouring a bit.

Also, this did not start until about three weeks ago.
"Andrew E" wrote in message
...
Lock-ups are usually (95%) hardware related,even if event viewer doesnt
show anything.They can be tough to isolate but adding a new hd eliminates
50% fairly inexpensivly,if it persists,youre looking at a board
failure,being that
all cables,connections,etc. are in good shape.

Whoops,

I failed to mention that, in Safe Mode, it has gone over 12 hours without a
freeze.

As a point of reference, it has locked up six times in the past 8 hourse
under normal boot. This would indicate a driver but none show to be
failing.


"Jack" wrote in message
...
Jason, Jim and Andrew, thanks to all of you.

Scans have been fine and I use AdWare.

My fear is and has been what Andrew has suggested. My guess is that it is
the hard drive as, when the computer freezes, the pitch of the sound of
the
fan/hard drive lowers as if it is labouring a bit.

Also, this did not start until about three weeks ago.
"Andrew E" wrote in message
...
Lock-ups are usually (95%) hardware related,even if event viewer doesnt
show anything.They can be tough to isolate but adding a new hd
eliminates
50% fairly inexpensivly,if it persists,youre looking at a board
failure,being that
all cables,connections,etc. are in good shape.

Have you tried updating your display drivers???

I was having the exact same problem and fixed it by updating display
drivers.


"Jack" wrote in message
...
Whoops,

I failed to mention that, in Safe Mode, it has gone over 12 hours without
a
freeze.

As a point of reference, it has locked up six times in the past 8 hourse
under normal boot. This would indicate a driver but none show to be
failing.


"Jack" wrote in message
...
Jason, Jim and Andrew, thanks to all of you.

Scans have been fine and I use AdWare.

My fear is and has been what Andrew has suggested. My guess is that it
is
the hard drive as, when the computer freezes, the pitch of the sound of
the
fan/hard drive lowers as if it is labouring a bit.

Also, this did not start until about three weeks ago.
"Andrew E" wrote in message
...
Lock-ups are usually (95%) hardware related,even if event viewer
doesnt
show anything.They can be tough to isolate but adding a new hd
eliminates
50% fairly inexpensivly,if it persists,youre looking at a board
failure,being that
all cables,connections,etc. are in good shape.

You may try to isolating what process is causing the
freeze by successively disabling each service or process
until you are freeze free. I diagnosed a similar problem
in the past, but not in XP. I believe in XP you go to
StartRun and type in msconfig. After the window comes up
you choose which service or process to disable during boot
up. Keep going down the line, disabling one or two
processes at a time, rebooting each time, until it does
not freeze. This will at least narrow what driver or dll
is responsible.

Perhaps someone with more XP experience can fine-tune this
procedure for you.


-----Original Message-----
Have you tried updating your display drivers???

I was having the exact same problem and fixed it by
updating display
drivers.


"Jack" wrote in message
...
Whoops,

I failed to mention that, in Safe Mode, it has gone
over 12 hours without
a
freeze.

As a point of reference, it has locked up six times in
the past 8 hourse
under normal boot. This would indicate a driver but
none show to be
failing.


"Jack" wrote in message
...
Jason, Jim and Andrew, thanks to all of you.

Scans have been fine and I use AdWare.

My fear is and has been what Andrew has suggested.
My guess is that it
is
the hard drive as, when the computer freezes, the
pitch of the sound of
the
fan/hard drive lowers as if it is labouring a bit.

Also, this did not start until about three weeks ago.
"Andrew E" wrote in message
news:9D9D6BC7-DD8E-4464-B33B-
...
Lock-ups are usually (95%) hardware related,even if
event viewer
doesnt
show anything.They can be tough to isolate but
adding a new hd
eliminates
50% fairly inexpensivly,if it persists,youre
looking at a board
failure,being that
all cables,connections,etc. are in good shape.






.