Random Computer Crashes
- by Josh W.
Ok, here's a wierd one for you all.
Occasionally my PC here at work will crash in a very peculiar way. My dual monitors will suddenly go blank as if there is no longer a video signal, the USB mouse light will go dark and mouse stays unresponsive, the keyboard lights will not change status when the appropriate keys are pressed (Num/Caps/Scoll Lock). The CD Tray WILL open and close. But the computer will not respond to a ping request.
For all intents & purposes it's as if the computer is off, except it wasn't intentional by me. The power light and internal fans are still on and I've now lost any unsaved work. Now here's where it gets wierd. This PC is part of a batch of PC's we got from a local vendor who does our initial system builds. Mine, and 6 other co-workers PCs all have the same issue. Originally we thought it was a bad combination of hardware, but through trial and error the only thing we haven't eliminated are the OS, Mobo & CPU. The problem was so bad for some of them that they ended up going back to their 5 year old dinosaurs in order to get some work done, for me the problem isn't as bad, maybe once every other day or so, but still enough to bite me in the ass if I've forgotten my ritualistic pressing of CTRL-S every 1-5 minutes.
In this case we've tried two different video cards, two different power supplies, two different memory configurations, running on a UPS/not on UPS, updating/rolling back video drivers, three different bios revisions. The only things we haven't swapped are the mobo & cpu, mainly because a new mobo means a new Hardware Abstraction Layer, ie re-install of windows and there's alot of other software on this PC that takes forever to reload by hand. There was a base image that our systems team created with all the drivers installed and the basic setup of software our company uses, but they then must customize the setup for us programmers so it takes a while to get a new configuration up and going.
I'm a programmer by day and am usually pretty good at diagnosing computer problems whether through trial and error or not. We've pretty much exhausted all the ideas we can think of here, short of a new mobo/cpu. Was hoping someone out there might have anything else we can try..
Relevant Parts:
OS: XP Pro 32-bit
Motherboard: Intel DG41RQ
CPU: Intel Core-2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66GHz
Current BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp. RQG4110H.86A.0014.2010.0306.1151, 3/6/2010
Dual LCD's, Viewsonic VG930m & Samsung SyncMaster 910v (other people have different models, but listed in case there's some very wierd problem with the signals being sent/received)
PS/2 Keyboard
USB Microsoft Intellimouse
BIOS Versions Tried:
R 0013 12/23/2009
R 0014 3/6/2010
Video cards Tried
GeForce 8400 GS
Radeon HD 4350 - ASUS EAH4350
Two Different Power Supplies a 380W & 550W
Ram Configurations
2GB - 1 x 2GB
4GB - 2 x 2GB
