My PC Crashes At 8.02am Every Day

Mossy Monk

I am absolutely stumped by this. 3 days on the trot now and my pc freezes at 8.02am. I go to work, everything is running fine. Come home and it has frozen. the time on the systray is 8.02am. Can anyone shed some light on this? It is Windows XP SP2 I am running.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Is your house built on an ancient Indian burial ground by any chance? :eek:

Eh, other than that, do you have any scheduled tasks that could be kicking off a process that locks up the machine?
I'd think overheating, but 8:02 on the button every time is a bit strange... again, unless something is scheduled to run at 8am and it locks up after 2 mins.

What about central heating? could your radiators be coming on at 8am making PC cooling less efficient.

Ruu_Old

Check Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Event Viewer and see if theres any errors reported before the crash.

Mossy Monk

no errors reported close to that time

there is no central heating turned on atm so that rules that out. think i will dig up the back garden to see if there is a burial ground underneath me and there is no scheduled tasks of any kind

PogMoThoin

Open the case & see if the elves are kept busy

While its open, be no harm cleanin all the dust, in case its a heat issue.

DonkeyStyle \o/

I'd say one day before you go to work, boot it into safe mode and leave it there, see if it crashes or not... rules out a lot of software/driver possibilities.
Have you tried setting the system clock to 8:01am and letting it roll onto 8:02 ... just incase it's some sick joke by a virus/malware.

Though it smells like a hardware issue if you're not even BSOD'ing.
To that end, I'd start removing one piece of hardware every day... unplugging a usb device here... a router there.
You'll suss it out eventually.
I wonder if it's a power surge/spike/dip of some sort... though the 8:02 thing is still a bit freaky... is there anything else timed to come on/off around that time at all?

Ruu_Old

Mossy Monk wrote:

no errors reported close to that time

there is no central heating turned on atm so that rules that out. think i will dig up the back garden to see if there is a burial ground underneath me and there is no scheduled tasks of any kind

Are you sure Windows Automatic Updates aren't set to check at that time?

Mossy Monk

Ruu wrote:

Are you sure Windows Automatic Updates aren't set to check at that time?

most definately

i will wait for my download to finish and change the time to see if that freezes

Mossy Monk

an update

saturday: left the pc in safe mode, it was fine
sunday: it was fine
today: froze again at the exact same time

would formatting the c drive solve the problem?

BKtje

That would depend on what the problem is really.

irlrobins

The fact it freezes at the exact same time would possibly indicate that a scheduled task is causing the problem. Are there any tasks listed?

The_Goose

Its hardly some spy ware crap or trojan?
Have you run all the usual, adaware, spybot etc

Tom Dunne

It could also be the java updater or even Real player updater. Look for jusched.exe or realsched.exe (or something else to do with real***.exe - can't remember it off hand).

Failing that, look for other programs launched at startup that could possibly be updating at that time (start->run->msconfig->startup). It has to be in there somewhere, especially given that this didn't happen when in safe mode.

Mossy Monk

i have done spyware checks, virus checks, no scheduled tasks (i am checking this in control panel. correct?)

if a reinstall of windows solved it, it wouldnt bother me in the slightest

Tom Dunne

Mossy Monk wrote:

no scheduled tasks (i am checking this in control panel. correct?)

Java Updater and Real Player updater don't put a task in Scheduled Tasks, so you won't see it there. The only place you will see these is in the Task Manager or in msconfig.

Ruu_Old

Yep Scheduled Tasks in Control Panel. Have a look through msconfig (start->run->msconfig.exe->go to startup tab) and check if theres anything running an update program through there.

Mossy Monk

i will have a look when i get home

thanks lads

SwampThing

Is the computer shy about running in front of you?

Any reason you can't sit in front of it and see what happens at 8:02 every day?

Mossy Monk

SwampThing wrote:

Any reason you can't sit in front of it and see what happens at 8:02 every day?

like the original post says. i am at work

mr_disc

i know automatic updates were suggested but it could also be your Anti - virus program trying to update itself ............

Tenshot

Do you turn your PC on at a certain time every day, or does it run 24/7?

A few years ago, my system was crashing periodically every 3-4 days - complete lockup. It turned out to be a slow memory leak in one of the device drivers that would gradually drain away all the available system memory until none remained.

I caught it initially by leaving Task Manager running on the performance page, so I could see system resources when it locked up - then I used a memory monitoring tool (forget which one, sorry) to figure out what process/service was using more than its fair share of memory, finally followed by a driver update which fixed it.

Curious that it doesn't happen at the weekend. Is there anything different in your weekend routine? You could try changing the date to last Saturday before going to work tomorrow, and see if that prevents it... if so, it will strongly suggest that there is a scheduled event happening to cause it.

The latest version of Autoruns from http://www.sysinternals.com/ shows a ton of stuff that gets loaded at startup which was missing from earlier versions; even if you've run it before, it's worth getting the new version. (Make sure to hide Microsoft-signed tasks, to reduce the amount listed down to something manageable.)

BlackWizard

Could be an anti virus scan. They should not go off on the w/e. When they do go
off it should be around 8am

What AV software do you use? AVG?

Mossy Monk

yeah, AVG

BlackWizard

If you are using AVG free then just open it up. You should see a Scheduler button.

Click it then go to Scheduled Tasks. Either change that or delete the scheduled
time. Try move it to 8.00pm tonight, just to test if thats what it is.

Mossy Monk

cool. i'll try that when i get home. also what Tenshot said

youcancallmeal

It is more than likely AVG.

My AVG used to automatically turn on my PC at 8am every morning and start a scan of all the hard drives. Can't remember off hand how I disabled it but it was quite easy. I think 8am is the default time for scheduled scans?

Tom Dunne

youcancallme>al wrote:

I think 8am is the default time for scheduled scans?

I think this could be it. I just checked my AVG and sure enough, it is set for a scan at 8:00am (I didn't set it up, so it has to be the default).

WizZard

I would also advise running Prime95 and memtest to see if it could possibly be a hardware error (or misconfiguration) that is causing the problem - this could also occur when the CPU/RAM are under heavy load such as during an AV scan.

If these freeze or crash your PC you will know there is a h/w problem

PogMoThoin

Run prime 95 for a few hrs.
Run tests 5 & 6 of memtest. I find them the best for finding errors. When it opens press "c", then when set-up opens press 1, then 3, Then pick test 5 or 6 and press return. Press 0 to start the test. Run each test for an hr or so, but fails will usually occur within the 1st 15mins.

Capt'n Midnight

Check the BIOS for a wake up / alarm setting.

Then in case it's enivronmental, try changing the time on the PC.

If it still crashes at 8:02 then may be external - something big on a timer like immersion ?

Ziycon

Why dont you just change the time on your PC to a few minutes before this event happens and see if anything happens?

GreeBo

I reckon BIOS
for about a week my PC was on everytime I came home and I couldnt figure out why
apparently I had told it to turn on at 12pm in the bios and forgotten about it...

Mossy Monk

it seems it was avg

all sorted now
thank you to all