Win7 64 Ultimate repeatedly hangs and then recovers

Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
motherboard, 8 Gigs. Firewall, antivirus up to date, etc. One
PS2 port for keyboard and the mouse is USB. System was
built from new parts about a year ago, Antec Sonata case and PS.

Very sparce system, no optical drives, Nvidia Fx570 20 watt
graphics card, only a handful of applications, spends most of
its life with the screens tiled with secure shell text windows
waiting to see if another line will appear. System runs at about
80 watts from the wall according to a watt meter, more during
boot and during rarely using some application to do something.

Within the last month the mouse began to "hang", usually for a
second and then recover. A couple of times at the end of this I
saw the blink of a little text box saying that some system had
recovered. Unfortunately it has been long enough and it was so
fast and I haven't seen that in the last couple of weeks so I can't
even precisely tell you the exact message in that box.

I tried rebooting the machine and the problem didn't change.

I assumed it was a dying mouse and went and bought a new
Microsoft mouse, installed that and the problem didn't change.

I searched the event system repeatedly and there appears to be no event
for this. I would love to hear how I could get this logged in the system.

Someone suggested it was perhaps not just the mouse and the whole
system was hanging. I watched and was able to verify that it was not
only the mouse, the keyboard also appeared to be part of the hang.
But then later I did see this hang not just for a second, but for sometimes
ten seconds and even a couple of times for upwards of an hour. During
those two long times the keyboard was still live and I was able to limp
through using the keyboard while the mouse cursor was frozen on the screen.

I tried swapping the port the mouse was plugged into and the problem
didn't change.

I did a system restore back to the beginning of January, the oldest point
I think I still have, and the problem didn't change, so I undid the system
restore. The restore did mention that it was undoing a security patch for
USB drivers from the end of 2013 from Microsoft, but since it didn't
change anything that may be irrelevant.

I went and borrowed a pair of speakers and plugged them in. Each time
the hang ends there is a short BeeBop from the speakers with the Bee
being higher pitch than the Bop.

There have been no hardware changes, other than the new mouse test,
the box is meant to be a toaster and I don't go constantly changing bolts
on the toaster. There are no other USB devices. There have been no
new applications installed, other than the daily AV updates and the
monthly bugpatch tuesday and a couple of browser new versions and
Adobe's quarterly bugpatches this month. The new versions of the
browsers were crippled by the system restore when things got yanked
away, but undoing the restore put them back together.

Is there any way I can track down what the cause of this is? And perhaps
even find a fix for it? (Someone told me "You just have to update all your
drivers, that is your problem." It isn't clear to me how that could explain
this suddenly appearing in the last month or in this way)

Much lower priority and unrelated, two things have been present since
the day it was built. Seemingly randomly, perhaps every hour or day the
little piezo speaker will give a very short Beep. There is nothing in the
log system for that, but I assume something is unhappy somewhere and
just on principle I'd like to track down who is unhappy and why and fix it.
Someone months ago said it might be possible to track access to sound
files and catch the process using those. I'd be happy if there was any
way to figure out who is beeping. Similar, a few times a day there is an
event in the log system saying the Microsoft user experience faile in an
attempt to connect. Again, just on principle I like to track down and
eliminate causes for errors. But both these are less important than the
hang.

Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me.

Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
motherboard, 8 Gigs. Firewall, antivirus up to date, etc. One
PS2 port for keyboard and the mouse is USB. System was
built from new parts about a year ago, Antec Sonata case and PS.

Very sparce system, no optical drives, Nvidia Fx570 20 watt
graphics card, only a handful of applications, spends most of
its life with the screens tiled with secure shell text windows
waiting to see if another line will appear. System runs at about
80 watts from the wall according to a watt meter, more during
boot and during rarely using some application to do something.

Within the last month the mouse began to "hang", usually for a
second and then recover. A couple of times at the end of this I
saw the blink of a little text box saying that some system had
recovered. Unfortunately it has been long enough and it was so
fast and I haven't seen that in the last couple of weeks so I can't
even precisely tell you the exact message in that box.

I tried rebooting the machine and the problem didn't change.

I assumed it was a dying mouse and went and bought a new
Microsoft mouse, installed that and the problem didn't change.

I searched the event system repeatedly and there appears to be no event
for this. I would love to hear how I could get this logged in the system.

Someone suggested it was perhaps not just the mouse and the whole
system was hanging. I watched and was able to verify that it was not
only the mouse, the keyboard also appeared to be part of the hang.
But then later I did see this hang not just for a second, but for sometimes
ten seconds and even a couple of times for upwards of an hour. During
those two long times the keyboard was still live and I was able to limp
through using the keyboard while the mouse cursor was frozen on the screen.

I tried swapping the port the mouse was plugged into and the problem
didn't change.

I did a system restore back to the beginning of January, the oldest point
I think I still have, and the problem didn't change, so I undid the system
restore. The restore did mention that it was undoing a security patch for
USB drivers from the end of 2013 from Microsoft, but since it didn't
change anything that may be irrelevant.

I went and borrowed a pair of speakers and plugged them in. Each time
the hang ends there is a short BeeBop from the speakers with the Bee
being higher pitch than the Bop.

There have been no hardware changes, other than the new mouse test,
the box is meant to be a toaster and I don't go constantly changing bolts
on the toaster. There are no other USB devices. There have been no
new applications installed, other than the daily AV updates and the
monthly bugpatch tuesday and a couple of browser new versions and
Adobe's quarterly bugpatches this month. The new versions of the
browsers were crippled by the system restore when things got yanked
away, but undoing the restore put them back together.

Is there any way I can track down what the cause of this is? And perhaps
even find a fix for it? (Someone told me "You just have to update all your
drivers, that is your problem." It isn't clear to me how that could explain
this suddenly appearing in the last month or in this way)

Much lower priority and unrelated, two things have been present since
the day it was built. Seemingly randomly, perhaps every hour or day the
little piezo speaker will give a very short Beep. There is nothing in the
log system for that, but I assume something is unhappy somewhere and
just on principle I'd like to track down who is unhappy and why and fix it.
Someone months ago said it might be possible to track access to sound
files and catch the process using those. I'd be happy if there was any
way to figure out who is beeping. Similar, a few times a day there is an
event in the log system saying the Microsoft user experience faile in an
attempt to connect. Again, just on principle I like to track down and
eliminate causes for errors. But both these are less important than the
hang.

Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me.

1) Check the Event Viewer, for a clue as to which subsystem it doing it.
2) Download GPU-Z and verify the temperature of the video card.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

A machine operating 24/7, the video card cooler is the weak link.
It can be a lower quality fan than some others you might be using.
An overheating video card could be doing a VPU reset in the middle
of a session.

http://www.northeastnetwork.com/ebay...ds/FX570_2.jpg

If the fan stops spinning, that fancy cooler becomes one
big insulator. And the GPU can then get pretty hot. A 20 Watt
video card likely won't be a big cooker, but some video cards,
the GPU got so hot that adjacent plastic got melted. And the
GPU was ruined.

The Event Viewer though, will offer the most diagnostic value.

The beeping, is spoiling my theory, which is why I'm
not betting on the video card as being the only answer. Perhaps
a visual check of all cooling fans is called for, in case
the single beep is some other item overheating. You can use
CoreTemp or SpeedFan, for other temperature readout purposes.

On WinXP, I'd also be looking in setupapi.log, for evidence of
hardware that's "re-installing" itself, down at the end of the
log. On modern OSes, I'm not really sure where I should be
looking. And files with names like that, on a more modern
OS, they're not telling me what I need to know. WinXP is the
last one, where that file was really of value.

Paul

On 1/29/2014 2:24 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
motherboard, 8 Gigs. Firewall, antivirus up to date, etc. One
PS2 port for keyboard and the mouse is USB. System was
built from new parts about a year ago, Antec Sonata case and PS.

Very sparce system, no optical drives, Nvidia Fx570 20 watt
graphics card, only a handful of applications, spends most of
its life with the screens tiled with secure shell text windows
waiting to see if another line will appear. System runs at about
80 watts from the wall according to a watt meter, more during
boot and during rarely using some application to do something.

Within the last month the mouse began to "hang", usually for a
second and then recover. A couple of times at the end of this I
saw the blink of a little text box saying that some system had
recovered. Unfortunately it has been long enough and it was so
fast and I haven't seen that in the last couple of weeks so I can't
even precisely tell you the exact message in that box.

I tried rebooting the machine and the problem didn't change.

I assumed it was a dying mouse and went and bought a new
Microsoft mouse, installed that and the problem didn't change.

I searched the event system repeatedly and there appears to be no event
for this. I would love to hear how I could get this logged in the system.

Someone suggested it was perhaps not just the mouse and the whole
system was hanging. I watched and was able to verify that it was not
only the mouse, the keyboard also appeared to be part of the hang.
But then later I did see this hang not just for a second, but for sometimes
ten seconds and even a couple of times for upwards of an hour. During
those two long times the keyboard was still live and I was able to limp
through using the keyboard while the mouse cursor was frozen on the screen.

I tried swapping the port the mouse was plugged into and the problem
didn't change.

I did a system restore back to the beginning of January, the oldest point
I think I still have, and the problem didn't change, so I undid the system
restore. The restore did mention that it was undoing a security patch for
USB drivers from the end of 2013 from Microsoft, but since it didn't
change anything that may be irrelevant.

I went and borrowed a pair of speakers and plugged them in. Each time
the hang ends there is a short BeeBop from the speakers with the Bee
being higher pitch than the Bop.

There have been no hardware changes, other than the new mouse test,
the box is meant to be a toaster and I don't go constantly changing bolts
on the toaster. There are no other USB devices. There have been no
new applications installed, other than the daily AV updates and the
monthly bugpatch tuesday and a couple of browser new versions and
Adobe's quarterly bugpatches this month. The new versions of the
browsers were crippled by the system restore when things got yanked
away, but undoing the restore put them back together.

Is there any way I can track down what the cause of this is? And perhaps
even find a fix for it? (Someone told me "You just have to update all your
drivers, that is your problem." It isn't clear to me how that could explain
this suddenly appearing in the last month or in this way)

Much lower priority and unrelated, two things have been present since
the day it was built. Seemingly randomly, perhaps every hour or day the
little piezo speaker will give a very short Beep. There is nothing in the
log system for that, but I assume something is unhappy somewhere and
just on principle I'd like to track down who is unhappy and why and fix it.
Someone months ago said it might be possible to track access to sound
files and catch the process using those. I'd be happy if there was any
way to figure out who is beeping. Similar, a few times a day there is an
event in the log system saying the Microsoft user experience faile in an
attempt to connect. Again, just on principle I like to track down and
eliminate causes for errors. But both these are less important than the
hang.

Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me.



Not much written about the PSU. How old? Power rating. Make?

GR

On 01/29/2014 04:24 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
motherboard, 8 Gigs. Firewall, antivirus up to date, etc. One
PS2 port for keyboard and the mouse is USB. System was
built from new parts about a year ago, Antec Sonata case and PS.

Very sparce system, no optical drives, Nvidia Fx570 20 watt
graphics card, only a handful of applications, spends most of
its life with the screens tiled with secure shell text windows
waiting to see if another line will appear. System runs at about
80 watts from the wall according to a watt meter, more during
boot and during rarely using some application to do something.

Within the last month the mouse began to "hang", usually for a
second and then recover. A couple of times at the end of this I
saw the blink of a little text box saying that some system had
recovered.


Since you reported (later in your post) that nothing showed up in event
viewer...it's important that you try to get what the message was.

I'd open up the machine and check that all fans are spinning and not
full of dust.





Unfortunately it has been long enough and it was so
fast and I haven't seen that in the last couple of weeks so I can't
even precisely tell you the exact message in that box.

I tried rebooting the machine and the problem didn't change.

I assumed it was a dying mouse and went and bought a new
Microsoft mouse, installed that and the problem didn't change.

I searched the event system repeatedly and there appears to be no event
for this. I would love to hear how I could get this logged in the system.

Someone suggested it was perhaps not just the mouse and the whole
system was hanging. I watched and was able to verify that it was not
only the mouse, the keyboard also appeared to be part of the hang.
But then later I did see this hang not just for a second, but for sometimes
ten seconds and even a couple of times for upwards of an hour. During
those two long times the keyboard was still live and I was able to limp
through using the keyboard while the mouse cursor was frozen on the screen.

I tried swapping the port the mouse was plugged into and the problem
didn't change.

I did a system restore back to the beginning of January, the oldest point
I think I still have, and the problem didn't change, so I undid the system
restore. The restore did mention that it was undoing a security patch for
USB drivers from the end of 2013 from Microsoft, but since it didn't
change anything that may be irrelevant.

I went and borrowed a pair of speakers and plugged them in. Each time
the hang ends there is a short BeeBop from the speakers with the Bee
being higher pitch than the Bop.

There have been no hardware changes, other than the new mouse test,
the box is meant to be a toaster and I don't go constantly changing bolts
on the toaster. There are no other USB devices. There have been no
new applications installed, other than the daily AV updates and the
monthly bugpatch tuesday and a couple of browser new versions and
Adobe's quarterly bugpatches this month. The new versions of the
browsers were crippled by the system restore when things got yanked
away, but undoing the restore put them back together.

Is there any way I can track down what the cause of this is? And perhaps
even find a fix for it? (Someone told me "You just have to update all your
drivers, that is your problem." It isn't clear to me how that could explain
this suddenly appearing in the last month or in this way)

Much lower priority and unrelated, two things have been present since
the day it was built. Seemingly randomly, perhaps every hour or day the
little piezo speaker will give a very short Beep. There is nothing in the
log system for that, but I assume something is unhappy somewhere and
just on principle I'd like to track down who is unhappy and why and fix it.
Someone months ago said it might be possible to track access to sound
files and catch the process using those. I'd be happy if there was any
way to figure out who is beeping. Similar, a few times a day there is an
event in the log system saying the Microsoft user experience faile in an
attempt to connect. Again, just on principle I like to track down and
eliminate causes for errors. But both these are less important than the
hang.

Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me.

On Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:12:16 -0500, Paul wrote:


A machine operating 24/7, the video card cooler is the weak link.
It can be a lower quality fan than some others you might be using.
An overheating video card could be doing a VPU reset in the middle
of a session.


What should the video card temperature be? My card is an ATI Radeon HD
4800 Series, if it makes a difference. GPU-Z is reporting a
temperature around 50C. Is that OK or is a problem?

On 1/29/2014, Ken Blake posted:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:12:16 -0500, Paul wrote:


A machine operating 24/7, the video card cooler is the weak link.
It can be a lower quality fan than some others you might be using.
An overheating video card could be doing a VPU reset in the middle
of a session.


What should the video card temperature be? My card is an ATI Radeon
HD 4800 Series, if it makes a difference. GPU-Z is reporting a
temperature around 50C. Is that OK or is a problem?

I have seen (but can't cite) remarks that CPU temperatures up to 70C
are OK. I have no reason to think that GPUs need to be any cooler than
CPUs.

Anyway, 50C doesn't worry me, but then, it's *your* GPU, not mine :-)

FWIW, GPU-Z says my GPU is at 41C. The Asus monitor tells me my CPU is
at 42C and my MB at 33C.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

"Ghostrider" " 00 wrote in message
m...
On 1/29/2014 2:24 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
System was built from new parts about a year ago, Antec Sonata case and
PS.
snip
Not much written about the PSU. How old? Power rating. Make?

GR

I really tried to do my homework first and provide the stuff people would
want to know.

It is an Antec supply, was brand new like all the other parts, a year ago,
650 watts.
I've had excellent luck with Antec supplies and never see one fail in less
than 5 years.

"philo " wrote in message
...
On 01/29/2014 04:24 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
snip

Since you reported (later in your post) that nothing showed up in event
viewer...it's important that you try to get what the message was.

I'd open up the machine and check that all fans are spinning and not full
of dust.

I will try to get that message, I understand how important the exact wording
of
an error message from a user is, but it is so fast I'll have to read it off
the
refresh of my retina.

I run a really clean shop. All the fans are clean and spinning.

I had a temperature monitor installed and it reported core temperatures
of 30C with the first core having gotten up to 34C at some time in the past.

Ken Blake wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:12:16 -0500, Paul wrote:


A machine operating 24/7, the video card cooler is the weak link.
It can be a lower quality fan than some others you might be using.
An overheating video card could be doing a VPU reset in the middle
of a session.


What should the video card temperature be? My card is an ATI Radeon HD
4800 Series, if it makes a difference. GPU-Z is reporting a
temperature around 50C. Is that OK or is a problem?


That's fine.

Temperatures of 90C to 100C, could affect the
long term reliability. 50C is a breeze. Some
of the $500 cards, could loiter at the high temps.

IC packaging materials and solder joints, are limiting
factors. This organic package, for example, may start
to degrade if run at 100C forever. The silicon might
be good to 135C.

(Organic packaging, with old fashioned wire bonding.)

http://www.emulation.com/catalog/die/pkg_multi_die.jpg

This is an example of ceramic at work. Just guessing
at the chip type, if the company charges customers $1000
for the chip, they can afford to use ceramic for it. The
cap on this thing, is a heat spreader. Using this packaging,
now the silicon limit of 135C comes into play. (Or, ask
the head of your fab facility, what temp is safe. The 135C
figure might have been for 3u silicon, eons ago.)

http://cn.ersa.com/media/images/prod...mic-metal-.jpg

So on computers, a point of concern is what the IC
packaging and solder joints can take, in terms of
degradation and stress. The incident where NVidia
took a financial hit, and a lot of GPUs died (and
some were fixed in toaster ovens), is an example
where attention to these details wasn't sufficient.
In some cases, if the ball count on a BGA is high
enough, a thermal underfill material has to be
squirted around the solder joints and cured in place.
That's to control thermal stresses in the materials.

If the fan fails on your 4800, the temperature
will rapidly shoot above 100C. On some of the
older designs, it simply wasn't possible to down-clock
them or anything, to keep them cool when that happens.
On older video cards, like my 9800Pro, the flat out
power and the idling power, are relatively similar
to one another. Newer cards, the idle power
can be much better. Then, it's a matter of whether
there is any feedback loop in the design, to protect
the silicon. Historically, thermal controls on video
cards have been non-existent, or stupidly designed.
Like, how about a company shipping a driver,
which causes the fan to stop spinning in software ?
That's happened before, with cards getting damaged
before the driver gets pulled from the download site.
There's no excuse for such a shoddy design. The companies
should spend a dollar or two, for hardware-based
fan controls. Or even alarms. Even a fan with a locked
rotor indicator and a red LED on the faceplate, would be
better than nothing. Maybe you'd notice a really
bright red LED lighting up your room :-)

Paul

On 01/29/2014 06:51 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
"philo " wrote in message
...
On 01/29/2014 04:24 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
snip

Since you reported (later in your post) that nothing showed up in event
viewer...it's important that you try to get what the message was.

I'd open up the machine and check that all fans are spinning and not full
of dust.

I will try to get that message, I understand how important the exact wording
of
an error message from a user is, but it is so fast I'll have to read it off
the
refresh of my retina.

I run a really clean shop. All the fans are clean and spinning.

I had a temperature monitor installed and it reported core temperatures
of 30C with the first core having gotten up to 34C at some time in the past.



I assume that your video card, if it has a fan on it is ok too?

"Paul" wrote in message
...
Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
snip
I searched the event system repeatedly and there appears to be no event
for this. I would love to hear how I could get this logged in the system.
snip
1) Check the Event Viewer, for a clue as to which subsystem it doing it.

As I said, I've searched the event system repeatedly and I just don't find
anything reported there. If there was a "we didn't think you wanted to see
problems, check this if you actually want problems logged" then I would
happily check that box, but at the moment I don't know how to force this
to be logged as an event.

2) Download GPU-Z and verify the temperature of the video card.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

As terrified of the advice "got a problem with something, well just
install more stuff and see what happens", I went to Nvidia and looked.
They had nTune which they claimed was the way to monitor anything
Nvidia related. I bit my tongue, downloaded and installed that and
clicked on Monitor. Instantly the Nvidia Monitor crashed the system.
Try it again and it does exactly the same. Try the Nvidia Control
panel instead and it is more polite putting up an error box saying that
the dll I just installed is either corrupted or there is something wrong.

That is exactly the sort of thing that worries me, every load of new
stuff that gets shoveled onto a system just adds to the uncertainty
instead of subtracting from it.

A machine operating 24/7, the video card cooler is the weak link.
It can be a lower quality fan than some others you might be using.
An overheating video card could be doing a VPU reset in the middle
of a session.

http://www.northeastnetwork.com/ebay...ds/FX570_2.jpg

If the fan stops spinning, that fancy cooler becomes one
big insulator. And the GPU can then get pretty hot. A 20 Watt
video card likely won't be a big cooker, but some video cards,
the GPU got so hot that adjacent plastic got melted. And the
GPU was ruined.

The fan is spinning wildly. Do I want to install more and wonder
whether it is going to decrease or increase the uncertainty?

The Event Viewer though, will offer the most diagnostic value.

Been there, done that, unless I'm just blind and not recognizing
any of the events I look at saying that the subsystem has recovered
or the subsystem has stopped responding.

The beeping, is spoiling my theory, which is why I'm
not betting on the video card as being the only answer. Perhaps
a visual check of all cooling fans is called for, in case
the single beep is some other item overheating. You can use
CoreTemp or SpeedFan, for other temperature readout purposes.

As I responded to someone else, case and core temps are 30C
or below and 34C max over who knows how long.

On WinXP, I'd also be looking in setupapi.log, for evidence of
hardware that's "re-installing" itself, down at the end of the
log. On modern OSes, I'm not really sure where I should be
looking. And files with names like that, on a more modern
OS, they're not telling me what I need to know. WinXP is the
last one, where that file was really of value.

Paul

On 1/29/2014, Bill Simpson posted:
I will try to get that message, I understand how important the exact
wording of
an error message from a user is, but it is so fast I'll have to read
it off the
refresh of my retina.

A screen capture program (movie, not still) could help, but the file
might be huge, since you don't know when the problem might happen.
Also, the program might hang because of the very problem you're trying
to capture.

I have on a few occasions set up a video camera to watch my screen,
with useful results. It is best if you know when the event happened, so
you can figure out where to look in the video file.

All of the above qualifies as a PITA...

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

"philo " wrote in message
...
On 01/29/2014 06:51 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
"philo " wrote in message
...
On 01/29/2014 04:24 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
Win7 64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches, I5-750, Gigabyte P55
snip
I assume that your video card, if it has a fan on it is ok too?

Itty bitty 5mm thick pancake fan on the video card spinning away wildly.

I'm trying to have done all the obvious simple stuff before bothering
anyone.
But thanks for trying to keep me honest.

Bill Simpson wrote:

Within the last month the mouse began to "hang", usually for a
second and then recover. A couple of times at the end of this I
saw the blink of a little text box saying that some system had
recovered. Unfortunately it has been long enough and it was so
fast and I haven't seen that in the last couple of weeks so I can't
even precisely tell you the exact message in that box.

Boot Windows into its safe mode. That will NOT load non-critical
services or startup items which might cause the problem.

I went and borrowed a pair of speakers and plugged them in. Each time
the hang ends there is a short BeeBop from the speakers with the Bee
being higher pitch than the Bop.

The BeeBoop sound means a USB device has disconnected. Remove all USB
devices (printer, thumb drives, camera, etc), reboot, and see if the
problem continues after rebooting Windows with all USB devices
disconnected.

On 01/29/2014 07:07 PM, Bill Simpson wrote:
"philo " wrote in message
news:

Itty bitty 5mm thick pancake fan on the video card spinning away wildly.

I'm trying to have done all the obvious simple stuff before bothering
anyone.
But thanks for trying to keep me honest.





When I troubleshoot a non-obvious problem I usually figure that it's a
good time to run a RAM test and to run the manufacturer's diagnostic on
the hard drive.

I figure there is no sense in going too far until I confirm the basics
are OK.


I also do things such as remove the video card and clean the
contacts...then make sure it's seated properly etc.