Fun Stuff > CLIKC
The PC-building/hardware knowledge thread
LTK:
Hard freezes like that used to be relatively common on my older computers and/or operating systems, but I wouldn't be able to tell you what's the cause.
I identified the noise problem I had earlier as 'coil whine', which is caused by faulty components in the PSU. I mailed it back and received a replacement... Still the same noise. It's not as bad as before, but it's there. My current solution, strange as it may be, is to install Folding@home and keep it running, and it neutralizes the noise completely. It must be that the power feed has no way to deliver its wattage when in low use, somehow causing the coil whine. That's the only explanation I can come up with. The moment F@H stops, it's there, and the moment I resume, it vanishes.
imagist42:
My laptop hard freezes occasionally when I plug in or remove the power cord. Usually it's only if I'm doing a lot of things at the same time, so it's not a big deal, but it's still rather annoying and mysterious.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: est on 13 Apr 2011, 20:31 ---- occasionally the machine freezes,
--- End quote ---
In order of likelihood, from my rather extensive experience: Motherboard, power supply, disk drive, memory. Memory problems are common, but IME don't cause this kind of hang (more likely to prevent booting at all). I've had disks with IDE interfaces do it, but not (so far) SATA ones.
But these things are the worst, as you simply get no diagnostic clues when the machine simply stops working.
Dimmukane:
I actually have issues like that on one of my work machines. The hardware in it was configured as a Linux server box, but our IT guys spent 3 days getting Windows up and running on it. Is it possible you've got some slightly weird hardware, like ECC-registered RAM, or a server-oriented CPU? I know it's not a lot of help, but I've seen it happen at a similar frequency of occurrence, so I figured I'd throw it out there?
Just as a tidbit for anyone else: be wary when running the NoScript extension in Firefox when you've got a lot of web pages with Flash enabled sitting open. I've never seen so many Error Reporting Service timeouts without seeing the Error Reporting Service window ever. If you don't allow the part of the page that's using Flash to run, Windows treats it as a crash in Flash and runs the service in the background, which can cause all of your programs to stop responding for up to 3 minutes, several times a day.
bicostp:
When I start seeing computers act up in ways that aren't explained by software tests, my first guess is capacitors. I've seen so much equipment, from servers to video cards, fail because of those stupid things. If any of them are puffy or split on top, puffy on the bottom, covered in yellow crust, or loose, they're bad and need to be replaced. It's a pain in the butt and requires a good bit of experience to perform reliably, but it may be the only option short of complete replacement if the equipment is out of warranty. Nearly everything made in the last 8 years is very likely to fall victim to the capacitor plague.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCSNWi3UHf4
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