OT: Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this? - Update
Just a note if anyone is curious ... I followed up on Mark's suggestion that the video card may be causing the freeze-up. I found a new AGP GEForce 6200 card at the local CompUSA store. I know some of y'all don't like CompUSA/Tiger Direct, but it's a local store for me so anything I buy there I don't have the aggravation of keeping track of how much I spent so I can figure out North Carolina's stupid $#%@*# internet tax when I do my taxes next year. (Interesting ... spell-check doesn't like AGP or GEForce, but has no problem with $#%@*# ??) Anyway ... Checking the system requirements listed on the box, I learned I need a 300W power supply with 18Amp available on the +12vdc rail to use this card. I don't remember what the last power supply I installed is rated at, so before I actually buy the new video card, I'm going to have to shut everything down get inside the case again to find out if I'm going to have to install a new power supply before I can replace the video card. Don't have a lot of enthusiasm for that at the moment. I know I'll have to do it anyway when I replace the video card, but I'm not looking forward to doing it twice. On a positive note though ... because of the attention I've been giving this, I have noticed that since I upgraded the memory my monitor isn't doing that flashing/changing brightness level as often. In fact, it's almost quit doing it. I think this may be due to my having vacuumed out the case re-seating adapter cards during the upgrade. It also reinforces Mark's suggestion that the freeze-up may be caused by the video card. I have experienced only one freeze-up since my original post. I was commenting to a blog post, and it froze when I hit the space-bar at the end of a word. I remembered to try the windoze key (in the form of the Ctrl+Esc work-around), and as I expected it was no joy. The keyboard is completely locked out at that point, as is the mouse. I'll keep y'all posted. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
Are all your fans working, and nothing is overheating? Oh, yeah. I fixed all those the last time I replaced the power supply. They were still working good when I had it apart a couple weeks ago to install new memory. Made sure to vacuum all the dust out of the case then as well. I think I built it in 2001, but it might be older than that. The 30GB HDD I replaced last year has a label Manuf:25APR2001. I don't remember if that's actually the original HDD. I've got a stack of old drives ranging in size from 850MB to 6GB, and one of those might have been the original. The only thing that hasn't been replaced is the case the floppy drive. The floppy drive is not connected any more. It stopped working I couldn't find a replacement. The only floppy drives available are external USB, so I just took the cables out. It's on at least its 3rd mother-board, 4th or 5th power supply, 2nd video card, 2nd sound card ... Thinking about it, it used to freeze up a couple of times every week, and now it only seems to freeze about once or twice a month. On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 7:50 PM, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: From: Mark Roberts John Coyle wrote: -Original Message- Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. You know, a cheap thing to try would be just getting a new keyboard. I wouldn't put the keyboard itself at the top of the list of potential culprits but it's worth a shot. Current plan is to see if a new video card might do the trick (as you suggested) and download a new mouse driver (per P.J.'s rogue DLL suggestion). I may have a spare windoze keyboard around here somewhere, and if I run across it I'll give it a try. I don't think that's the problem though because John Coyle's Ctrl+Esc does work to toggle the start menu when it's not frozen and doesn't do anything when it is. I'd already tried it. Other than that, I guess it's just something I'll have to live with until this computer gets so old decrepit it's no longer suitable to be used as my goofing-off-on-the-internet computer. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
Reminds me of the old joke about inheriting great-grandfathers axe. The head has been replaced twice and the handle has been replaced several times, but it's been in the family for years and we just can't part with it. gs George Sinos gsi...@gmail.com www.georgesphotos.net plus.georgesinos.com On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 8:19 AM, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Are all your fans working, and nothing is overheating? Oh, yeah. I fixed all those the last time I replaced the power supply. They were still working good when I had it apart a couple weeks ago to install new memory. Made sure to vacuum all the dust out of the case then as well. I think I built it in 2001, but it might be older than that. The 30GB HDD I replaced last year has a label Manuf:25APR2001. I don't remember if that's actually the original HDD. I've got a stack of old drives ranging in size from 850MB to 6GB, and one of those might have been the original. The only thing that hasn't been replaced is the case the floppy drive. The floppy drive is not connected any more. It stopped working I couldn't find a replacement. The only floppy drives available are external USB, so I just took the cables out. It's on at least its 3rd mother-board, 4th or 5th power supply, 2nd video card, 2nd sound card ... Thinking about it, it used to freeze up a couple of times every week, and now it only seems to freeze about once or twice a month. On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 7:50 PM, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: From: Mark Roberts John Coyle wrote: -Original Message- Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. You know, a cheap thing to try would be just getting a new keyboard. I wouldn't put the keyboard itself at the top of the list of potential culprits but it's worth a shot. Current plan is to see if a new video card might do the trick (as you suggested) and download a new mouse driver (per P.J.'s rogue DLL suggestion). I may have a spare windoze keyboard around here somewhere, and if I run across it I'll give it a try. I don't think that's the problem though because John Coyle's Ctrl+Esc does work to toggle the start menu when it's not frozen and doesn't do anything when it is. I'd already tried it. Other than that, I guess it's just something I'll have to live with until this computer gets so old decrepit it's no longer suitable to be used as my goofing-off-on-the-internet computer. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
RE: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
From: John Coyle On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. Ok, in that case the Windoze key wouldn't help. I've tried Ctrl+Esc, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Break ... all to no effect. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
John Coyle wrote: -Original Message- Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. You know, a cheap thing to try would be just getting a new keyboard. I wouldn't put the keyboard itself at the top of the list of potential culprits but it's worth a shot. -- Mark Roberts - Photography Multimedia www.robertstech.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
I was going to suggest that, but felt it might be too obvious. In my new laptop, occasionally it essentially locks the control key as down, so I can't type in emails. I've googled and googled to find out what the problem is and evidentially, according to lots of posts in various discussion forums, it is usually its an add-on mouse and its driver. So it MIGHT be a similar problem. But I definitely would try checking the Task Manager first. HTH, Marnie In a message dated 12/14/2012 2:27:11 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, jsessoms...@nc.rr.com writes: But rogue dll makes me wonder if I need to look for a new mouse driver. The one thing that I'm sure is common to every occurrence is I go to move the mouse pointer find it's frozen. Thanks for the ideas. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
From: Mark Roberts John Coyle wrote: -Original Message- Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. You know, a cheap thing to try would be just getting a new keyboard. I wouldn't put the keyboard itself at the top of the list of potential culprits but it's worth a shot. Current plan is to see if a new video card might do the trick (as you suggested) and download a new mouse driver (per P.J.'s rogue DLL suggestion). I may have a spare windoze keyboard around here somewhere, and if I run across it I'll give it a try. I don't think that's the problem though because John Coyle's Ctrl+Esc does work to toggle the start menu when it's not frozen and doesn't do anything when it is. I'd already tried it. Other than that, I guess it's just something I'll have to live with until this computer gets so old decrepit it's no longer suitable to be used as my goofing-off-on-the-internet computer. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
Are all your fans working, and nothing is overheating? On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 7:50 PM, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: From: Mark Roberts John Coyle wrote: -Original Message- Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. You know, a cheap thing to try would be just getting a new keyboard. I wouldn't put the keyboard itself at the top of the list of potential culprits but it's worth a shot. Current plan is to see if a new video card might do the trick (as you suggested) and download a new mouse driver (per P.J.'s rogue DLL suggestion). I may have a spare windoze keyboard around here somewhere, and if I run across it I'll give it a try. I don't think that's the problem though because John Coyle's Ctrl+Esc does work to toggle the start menu when it's not frozen and doesn't do anything when it is. I'd already tried it. Other than that, I guess it's just something I'll have to live with until this computer gets so old decrepit it's no longer suitable to be used as my goofing-off-on-the-internet computer. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- David Parsons Photography http://www.davidparsonsphoto.com Aloha Photographer Photoblog http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
RE: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
Doesn't happen enough to make the machine un-usable, just enough to be peculiar. There's a lot of computer expertise on the list, so I thought I'd ask. It's a problem on the level of Why is the carpet protector creeping sideways again? ... not quite as urgent as I know I made a cup of coffee, but what the hell did I do with it? ??? From: Bob W I had similar problems with a Dell laptop that I used to use and I never found out the cause. It started with some problems on the sound card, and issues with the fan and overheating. I think the issue was that Windows just became too fat for the machine to support. I did several re-installs, and maxed the memory, stripped everything back to basics (as far as that's possible with Windows and consistent with running something useful and secure). It was an old machine so I gave up and bought a new machine with Win7 - life's too short. I use the old one occasionally for playing with other operating systems. It currently has Minix on, and someday I'll play about with it. B -Original Message- From: PDML [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of John Sessoms This is the computer I use for goofing off on the internet. WindozeXP SP3. Sometimes this computer will just freeze. Whatever is on the display at that time will continue. Mouse pointer won't move. If there's something coming from the speakers it will stutter continuously until power is shut off. It does this at rare random times. [...] The power supply is reasonably new I put a new, more powerful cooler fan on the CPU the last time I replaced the power supply. What else should I look at? -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
It sounds like it has a high priority task that's not completing. Usually this doesn't quite crash the GUI but does lock it up. Back when I was doing SDK development it happened all the time, but then I could usually deduce which task had gone haywire, since I usually created the problem. In this case it could be anything from a rogue dll that cannot completely load and doesn't fail gracefully to a hardware problem such as a problematic sector on a hard drive. You don't mention if you're using SATA or PATA drives, ribbon cables can go bad over time and lead to very hard to diagnose problems if the error is intermittent. I don't have enough long term experience with SATA cables to know if they could cause the same problem. You can also have similar problems if any expansion cards aren't completely seated or there are cracked leads to the cards on the buss. On 12/14/2012 11:26 AM, John Sessoms wrote: Doesn't happen enough to make the machine un-usable, just enough to be peculiar. There's a lot of computer expertise on the list, so I thought I'd ask. It's a problem on the level of Why is the carpet protector creeping sideways again? ... not quite as urgent as I know I made a cup of coffee, but what the hell did I do with it? ??? From: Bob W I had similar problems with a Dell laptop that I used to use and I never found out the cause. It started with some problems on the sound card, and issues with the fan and overheating. I think the issue was that Windows just became too fat for the machine to support. I did several re-installs, and maxed the memory, stripped everything back to basics (as far as that's possible with Windows and consistent with running something useful and secure). It was an old machine so I gave up and bought a new machine with Win7 - life's too short. I use the old one occasionally for playing with other operating systems. It currently has Minix on, and someday I'll play about with it. B -Original Message- From: PDML [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of John Sessoms This is the computer I use for goofing off on the internet. WindozeXP SP3. Sometimes this computer will just freeze. Whatever is on the display at that time will continue. Mouse pointer won't move. If there's something coming from the speakers it will stutter continuously until power is shut off. It does this at rare random times. [...] The power supply is reasonably new I put a new, more powerful cooler fan on the CPU the last time I replaced the power supply. What else should I look at? -- Don't lose heart, they might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a lengthly search. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
As soon as you experience some sort of freeze, hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE and click the Task Manager button. The Task Manager window will open. Click on the Processes tab and then click the CPU heading (twice). That will sort the list in descending order by CPU usage. See if you have a process that is eating up a large percentage of your CPU time. You can Google the process name if you don't recognize it. Prime suspect is normally spyware/adware, so downloading the free MalwareBytes for a check of that is recommended. There are lots of other possibilities, but that's what I'd try first. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
On 12/14/2012 3:04 PM, Darren Addy wrote: As soon as you experience some sort of freeze, hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE and click the Task Manager button. The Task Manager window will open. Click on the Processes tab and then click the CPU heading (twice). That will sort the list in descending order by CPU usage. See if you have a process that is eating up a large percentage of your CPU time. You can Google the process name if you don't recognize it. Prime suspect is normally spyware/adware, so downloading the free MalwareBytes for a check of that is recommended. There are lots of other possibilities, but that's what I'd try first. Unless the UI is so completely locked up that the old three finger salute doesn't get recognized. I'm assuming he's already tried that. When the latest HD failure in my desktop happened the system would lock up trying to load software from almost failed sectors on the failing drive. Sometimes the GUI would lock and only a hard reboot would get it going again. -- Don't lose heart, they might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a lengthly search. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
From: P. J. Alling It sounds like it has a high priority task that's not completing. Usually this doesn't quite crash the GUI but does lock it up. Back when I was doing SDK development it happened all the time, but then I could usually deduce which task had gone haywire, since I usually created the problem. In this case it could be anything from a rogue dll that cannot completely load and doesn't fail gracefully to a hardware problem such as a problematic sector on a hard drive. You don't mention if you're using SATA or PATA drives, ribbon cables can go bad over time and lead to very hard to diagnose problems if the error is intermittent. I don't have enough long term experience with SATA cables to know if they could cause the same problem. You can also have similar problems if any expansion cards aren't completely seated or there are cracked leads to the cards on the buss. That describes it pretty well, the GUI doesn't crash but it does lock up. I've tried just walking away from it to see if maybe it will eventually unlock, but so far no joy. I've left it over-night it's still frozen the next day. It still has PATA CD-ROM DVD drives, but the new HDD is SATA. Cables should all be good, I had a look at them when I was replacing the memory. But rogue dll makes me wonder if I need to look for a new mouse driver. The one thing that I'm sure is common to every occurrence is I go to move the mouse pointer find it's frozen. Thanks for the ideas. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
From: Darren Addy As soon as you experience some sort of freeze, hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE and click the Task Manager button. The Task Manager window will open. Click on the Processes tab and then click the CPU heading (twice). That will sort the list in descending order by CPU usage. See if you have a process that is eating up a large percentage of your CPU time. You can Google the process name if you don't recognize it. Prime suspect is normally spyware/adware, so downloading the free MalwareBytes for a check of that is recommended. There are lots of other possibilities, but that's what I'd try first. Doesn't respond to CTRL+ALT+DELETE once it's frozen. Caps Lock Num Lock will not toggle once it's frozen. No response to keyboard or mouse at all. That's why I'm having to do hard reboots. I don't think it's spyware/adware. I'm running a strong HOSTS file, fairly restrictive privacy settings on my browser NoScript. I've got fairly good anti-virus have been regularly applying all of the security updates for WindozeXP. If I have Firefox open, when I re-launch it after rebooting all of the previously open tabs will reload and the focus will be on the tab that was in focus when it froze. It opens to the same state it was in at the time it froze. Thunderbird, OTOH, will open without any message loaded, but it will show the message that I was reading when it froze marked as read. Plus it has occasionally frozen when I was using my word processor or spread sheets or playing solitaire and not on the web. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
On 15 December 2012 09:26, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: But rogue dll makes me wonder if I need to look for a new mouse driver. The one thing that I'm sure is common to every occurrence is I go to move the mouse pointer find it's frozen. It's still possible that it's a video rendering freeze. I've had a similar occurrence and it became apparent that the mouse did function (I got a reaction to a click at an assumed position of the mouse pointer) but the display wasn't updating to any new input or actions. I've found that pressing the Windows key on a frozen display can sometimes break through the lockup better than ctrl-alt-del, the start menu will pop up and allow you to access some actions, although you may need to use the arrow keys and enter. I've been able to do a soft shutdown this way. Repeated hard shutdowns seem to get a computer into a downward spiral of errors and faults. regards, Anthony -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
From: Anthony Farr On 15 December 2012 09:26, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: But rogue dll makes me wonder if I need to look for a new mouse driver. The one thing that I'm sure is common to every occurrence is I go to move the mouse pointer find it's frozen. It's still possible that it's a video rendering freeze. I've had a similar occurrence and it became apparent that the mouse did function (I got a reaction to a click at an assumed position of the mouse pointer) but the display wasn't updating to any new input or actions. I've found that pressing the Windows key on a frozen display can sometimes break through the lockup better than ctrl-alt-del, the start menu will pop up and allow you to access some actions, although you may need to use the arrow keys and enter. I've been able to do a soft shutdown this way. Repeated hard shutdowns seem to get a computer into a downward spiral of errors and faults. regards, Anthony Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. regards, Anthony On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
RE: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
On keyboards lacking a Windows key, Ctrl+Esc can be used instead. John Coyle Brisbane, Australia -Original Message- From: PDML [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of Anthony Farr Sent: Saturday, 15 December 2012 3:05 PM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Re: Any thoughts on what might cause this? Can you remap the windows key operation to a function key? I don't even know if that is possible but it sounds reasonable, I think. regards, Anthony On 15 December 2012 13:30, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: Drat. IBM 101-key click keyboard - no windoze keys. I'll have to look around and see if I can scrounge up a spare windows-keyboard. Hate to give up my good keyboard. I just love the feel of typing on this thing. FWIW, it's been doing this maybe once or twice a month for years doesn't seem to be getting any worse. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
RE: Any thoughts on what might cause this?
I had similar problems with a Dell laptop that I used to use and I never found out the cause. It started with some problems on the sound card, and issues with the fan and overheating. I think the issue was that Windows just became too fat for the machine to support. I did several re-installs, and maxed the memory, stripped everything back to basics (as far as that's possible with Windows and consistent with running something useful and secure). It was an old machine so I gave up and bought a new machine with Win7 - life's too short. I use the old one occasionally for playing with other operating systems. It currently has Minix on, and someday I'll play about with it. B -Original Message- From: PDML [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of John Sessoms This is the computer I use for goofing off on the internet. WindozeXP SP3. Sometimes this computer will just freeze. Whatever is on the display at that time will continue. Mouse pointer won't move. If there's something coming from the speakers it will stutter continuously until power is shut off. It does this at rare random times. [...] The power supply is reasonably new I put a new, more powerful cooler fan on the CPU the last time I replaced the power supply. What else should I look at? -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
