Problem with my computer

Glenman

Hi folks, maybe some of ye could shed some light on a problem I’ve been having with my computer. It’s a couple of years old but has been upgraded and has windows XP.

My problem is that its takes a number of attempts to start up. During start-up it shuts down and begins starting up again. Sometimes during start-up it just freezes and I need to press the reset button to get it to re-start. Sometimes the screen can go all fuzzy and freeze.
Other times it can start up fine and run for a few minutes but suddenly begin to re-start again. Other times it runs fine for a few minutes and the following message appears on the screen “Attention Out Of Range H 64MHz V 31MHz” and I need to press the reset button to re-start.
Eventually after 5 or 6 attempts of re-starting via the reset button the computer will run fine and work perfectly.

Does anyone have any ideas of what might be wrong? It must be some sort of hardware problem as a friend of mine wiped the hard drive and loaded windows again but the problem began to re-occur soon afterwards.

Thanks

Ruu_Old

It might be something overheating. Whats the wattage of your power supply? Try reseating memtest and then running memtest

Glenman

Thanks will try that, the computer is at home at the moment and I won't be for a while so I'm not sure about the power supply spec.

irlrobins

I'd open the case up and remove all the dust and fluff that's inside. That could be preventing the fan system from operating correctly.

PogMoThoin

Ya sounds like a job for HooverMan. give him a call.

Blinder

Open Control Panel - Display.
Go to the Settings tab and change the values here to 800 x 600 256 colour values
Click on the Apply button.
Shut down and restart the computer normally.
Your error message should now be gone

If this solves your problem, you may want to change the display settings to
something a bit better than the 800 x 600 256 colour values.
Just make sure that the values you choose are within the capabilities of your monitor (get the information from the monitor manufacturer's web site.)

RE*AC*TOR

Doesn't sound like a heating issue to me, the computer should be fairly cool, when being turned on. It could be the opposite - the computer being too cold.

This would be a power supply issue - the resistance of the circuit boards lowers with heat - so the first time you boot up the computer might be too cold, but the second or third times it would have heated up enough.

I'd make sure everything stuck in the motherboards - ie the ram, the graphics card etc is seated properly first - then - if you can - borrow someone else power supply and see if it makes any difference.

Glenman

Thanks everyone for the tips, I will try them when I get home.

zilog_jones

If it's not an overheating issue or a loose connection somewhere, it could be some electronic issue like what Reactor said - could be the power supply is knackered.

Was anything done to the PC recently before this started happening?

What exactly is the situation where you get that "out of range" message? Do you get to see the Windows logon or desktop at all, or is it soon after this?

Glenman

Yeah sometime it logs on fine showing the desktop and everything. Then the out of range message appears and the computer freezes.
When the problem first occured I gave it to a man to update it, he put in more RAM, added and DVD driver and updated from win98 to XP.

wandererz

Quite likely that your graphics card is the issue.

Webmonkey

Doesn't sound like an overheating issue by the sounds of it. RE*AC*TOR has a good point there actually about the circuit resistance.
You should try another PSU and rule that out.
As well as that you should remove all unneccessary cards, such as modems, sound cards etc. Basically start the computer with just memory, cpu and graphics.
Thats what i usually do as some devices like modems can cause some wierd problems sometimes especially with faulty drivers.

Anti

yep new psu it is, its probably failed at this point, as it is pretty old.

Glenman

Forgive me for my lack of computer knowledge but are all computer psu’s different depending on the model. My computer it an Athlon I think, and how much roughly would one cost.
Suppose I'd need to borrow one first to see if the power supply is indeed the problem

Ruu_Old

It depends what you are running off the PSU. Most of the PSUs these days are ATX form factor, so they will fit in your case. I would go for something by Antec and I heard Fortron are pretty good too. Theres a sticky on the top of this forum about minimum PSUs etc.