Intermittent system problems

[Broadback]

I am having intermittent system problems on my fairly new PC. They may happen more than once a day or not for several days, I cannot see any pattern. Also they manifest in several ways, sometimes requiring a system reload, sometimes mending itself after a minute or two, it can be the mouse freezing or unable to load a program, clicking on it produces no response. Any ideas as to how I can ascertain if it is a hardware or software problem? any advice would be welcomed.

[Rik]

Presumably you've done a full virus/malware scan, BB? Next step would be to go into Device Manager and check whether any hardware has a yellow exclamation mark against it. If that's all clear, can you bring up Task Manager and see what's running at the time?

[Glenn]

Download, burn and run http://www.memtest86.com/ for 24 hours, it may through up some errors.

[Broadback]

I've done a virus scan using NOD32 and malware scan using Microsoft Windows Malicious software removal tool, no problems found. However having downloaded memtest86 it says I need to place it on a floppy, which I don't have. Any other ideas please?

[Glenn]

Download the iso and burn it to a CD

[Broadback]

Tried that Glenn, cannot burn programs to the CD, don't know why, get right to the end (the last 5 seconds) hangs around a bit then fails.
Try again in the morning!

[Broadback]

OK, so I wrote the file (Memtest86 3.5) to the cd. when I tried to run it Nero open and asked me if I wanted to write it to the CD??
Also my display was altered to larger script. No ideas, I must say that it was the first time I have written to the cd/dvd player with this machine, had no need for it until now.
Yours ever fumbling

[Ray]

You need to boot from the CD not run it from Windows, BB. 

[Broadback]

Thanks Ray, I will now try that, if you don't hear from me for a while you will know it is working and I am testing testing testing!

[Ray]

Good luck with your testing, BB.

[somanyholes]

have a look in eventvwr and see whats going on in the system log and then the other logs. might point you in the right ditrection.

start

run

eventvwr

[Broadback]

Yet another failure. I cannot create a boot CD from Memtest86 3.5. It states "Be sure to use a create from image option. DO not simply copy the file to a CD." If I try from Nero is simply flashes "Done" but nothing is. So I down loaded InfraRecorder and tried that, this simply starts then locks, such that I have to re-boot. I can boot ok from a CD that I wrote yonks ago, also I can write date files to the CD no problems. Look like the only way forward is to lash out for a test cd. 

[Rik]

Are you sure you downloaded the right version, BB?

[Ray]

This is the best prgramme I have found for burning ISO images to CDs ImgBurn also make sure the Memtest file you have downloaded is an ISO image.

[Broadback]

Thanks Ray I have loaded and run that, after many tries. However it will not boot it asks for Linux, saying that it does not recognise the keyboard though I have definitely downloaded the Windows version. Do I need to make the cd bootable before I install the test program? In which case how do I do that without a floppy drive?

[Ray]

The process of burning the ISO image to the CD should make it bootable, BB, jst checking what you have done so far, is this the file you have downloaded memtest86-3.5.iso.zip? if it is you have then presumably expanded the zip file to get something like memtest86-3.5.iso and then tried to burn this file to your CD using Imgburn? if you've done all this you should have a bootable CD, also have you set your PC BIOS so that the first boot device is the CD drive?

[Glenn]

BB pm me your address and I'll send you a copy on CD, all you need to do to run it is put it in the cd drive and reboot with the cd drive as the 1st boot device.

[Broadback]

Thanks for the offer Glenn, I may take you up on it later, however I am coming rapidly to the conclusion that I have a strange intermittent hardware fault. I do not always boot up correctly. My machine uses ASRock, which should display briefly on boot giving the options to set up boot priorities etc. Now sometimes it works fine, sometimes it display the options for such a brief time you can't easily press F2, or whatever. Other times it hangs with the option display for quite some time then blanks the screen, without even load MS. I have booted Acronis from a cd, no problem, archived my system drive ok. However when I try to restore an old archive it does not deal with the disc drives correctly. I'm giving up for a while and going to vegetate in front of the TV.

[Glenn]

Strip it down to it's basics, 1 stick of ram (look in the manual to which slot, but normally it's the one closest to the CPU), HDU and graphics card.
Try to boot into safe mode, F8 when windows starts loading.
It maybe worth considering a BIOS update too.
If you have access to another PSU try that too.

[Broadback]

I have stripped the lady down, and reseated the cables, the CD drive cable did not seem well seated, of course that may be wishful thinking. However she is now behaving herself, but it is early days yet. Apart from the system locking, when I came to use the CD drive I was getting various and intermittent errors with it. Sometimes the system on booting did not see it, sometimes I was unable to write to it, I also had problem loading and running Acronis from a boot disc. Now I have written the Memtest86 3.5 files to a disc and successfully run the program. So it is a case of waiting and seeing.    Thanks one and all for the help.

[Ray]

Good news, BB, 

[Glenn]

 

[Ted]

A bit late, John, but there is a copy of memtest86 on the Mandriva installation disks, if you still have them. Just boot from it and select "memory test" from the boot menu. 

[Broadback]

Thanks Ted. Able to boot now from the disc I created. Incidentally I gave up on Linux, I just could not get all the peripherals to work correctly. Just lazy I guess!