System locks up solid

[originaljgf]

This has occurred twice in the past week; everything is running smoothly and suddenly the screen freezes - no cursor movement, no keyboard action, no lights. Must do a hard reset, when windows restarts it may run a few minutes or lock up again before the desktop is fully loaded. It will run fine in safe mode. The first time this happened I tore the system down, cleaned everything, and reassembled; it ran fine til this morning (nearly a week). I was running flightsim (FS2004) and everything froze, with a loud BRRRRRR in the sound. Restarted fine, then froze before I could even open the event log.

Restarted in safe mode (where it is running now) and checked the event log.

There are a dozens of entries of this error:
- System - Provider [ Name] Service Control Manager [ Guid] {555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4} [ EventSourceName] Service Control Manager - EventID 7001 [ Qualifiers] 49152 Version 0 Level 2 Task 0 Opcode 0 Keywords 0x8080000000000000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2026-02-15T12:12:55.117600000Z EventRecordID 1492969 Correlation - Execution [ ProcessID] 564 [ ThreadID] 664 Channel System Computer POS Security - EventData param1 Computer Browser param2 Server param3 %%1068

////////////////////////////////////////

Two of this error:
- System - Provider [ Name] Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM [ Guid] {1B562E86-B7AA-4131-BADC-B6F3A001407E} [ EventSourceName] DCOM - EventID 10005 [ Qualifiers] 49152 Version 0 Level 2 Task 0 Opcode 0 Keywords 0x80000000000000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2026-02-15T12:13:00.000000000Z EventRecordID 1492970 Correlation - Execution [ ProcessID] 0 [ ThreadID] 0 Channel System Computer POS Security - EventData param1 1084 param2 EventSystem param3 param4 {1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF}

//////////////////////////////////////////////

One of this "critical":- System - Provider [ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power [ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4} EventID 41 Version 2 Level 1 Task 63 Opcode 0 Keywords 0x8000000000000002 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2026-02-15T12:09:38.526400000Z EventRecordID 1492923 Correlation - Execution [ ProcessID] 4 [ ThreadID] 8 Channel System Computer POS - Security [ UserID] S-1-5-18 - EventData BugcheckCode 0 BugcheckParameter1 0x0 BugcheckParameter2 0x0 BugcheckParameter3 0x0 BugcheckParameter4 0x0 SleepInProgress false PowerButtonTimestamp 0

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

One of this warning:- System - Provider [ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Winlogon [ Guid] {DBE9B383-7CF3-4331-91CC-A3CB16A3B538} [ EventSourceName] Wlclntfy - EventID 6000 [ Qualifiers] 32768 Version 0 Level 3 Task 0 Opcode 0 Keywords 0x80000000000000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2026-02-15T12:10:46.000000000Z EventRecordID 121486 Correlation - Execution [ ProcessID] 0 [ ThreadID] 0 Channel Application Computer POS Security - EventData GPClient D9060000 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Binary data:In Words0000: 000006D9 In Bytes0000: D9 06 00 00 Ù...

////////////////////////////////////////////

And one of this error:- System - Provider [ Name] Microsoft-Windows-WMI [ Guid] {1edeee53-0afe-4609-b846-d8c0b2075b1f} [ EventSourceName] WinMgmt - EventID 10 [ Qualifiers] 49152 Version 0 Level 2 Task 0 Opcode 0 Keywords 0x80000000000000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2026-02-15T12:11:35.000000000Z EventRecordID 121488 Correlation - Execution [ ProcessID] 0 [ ThreadID] 0 Channel Application Computer POS Security - EventData //./root/CIMV2 SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99 0x80041003



System is ancient emachine T5246 with winfast mobo, 2gig RAM, upgraded with Athlon 2x6000 and GTX950 (the latter from my "good" system, currently being rebuilt); originally Vista, now running Win7 Pro SP1 x86 (difficult to justify a new computer when I have to save up for another MRI, lol)

- - - Updated - - -

FWIW, after the first occurrence of this I:
- ran chkdsk on all internal drives - no problems
- ran Crystal Disk on all internal drives - no problems
- ran sfc - no problems
- did scans with Panda, Adaware, and Superantispyware - no problems

system info shows all voltages and temperatures in spec

 

[dg1261]

Symptoms sound to me more like a hardware fault than software. Given that machine's vintage, have you considered the possibility of leaking capacitors? There was an industry-wide problem c. 2005-2010 where substandard electrolytic capacitors flooded the supply chain of numerous OEMs. Open the case, get a good flashlight, and examine the tops of all the motherboard electrolytics. (If you're not sure what to look for, do a google search and you'll find plenty of pictures of leaking capacitors.)

 

[originaljgf]

"...If you're not sure what to look for..."

Lol, at least I'm on solid ground there - a retired engineer with two patents for analog instrumentation circuits. A cursory examination shows nothing bogus, but with three HDs, an optical drive, a Hyper 212 cooler, and about five miles of cables (next PS I'm opting for a modular unit) I doubt I'm seeing everything.

Yes, this system is quite old (ca 2009) but it has outlasted two other desktops and a laptop.

 

[dg1261]

I handled about a dozen devices between 2014 to as recently as three months ago (a 2008 Dell E510) with that problem, and in each case it was one or more of the power smoothing caps near the cpu or ram, so if you're not seeing anything in those areas then I'd say that's probably not the issue.

 

[originaljgf]

Thanks. I will have to dismantle the system to inspect it more closely; not a bad idea anyway (before I got old and lazy I would tear down my computers about once a year for cleaning, reseat connectors, etc.).

 

[dg1261]

Yeah, sometimes inspection may be hampered without a bit of dismantling. I remember one motherboard (don't recall the system anymore) where a fan shroud covered the CPU and fan, and there was a bad cap right next to the CPU hidden by the shroud.

 

[originaljgf]

Well, knock on wood (ouch, that hurts my head), it appears the issue may have been merely a bad connection. Tore everything down, even to removing the mobo from the case. Blew out the dust, nothing looked amiss, a shot of cramoline on connectors, reassembled, and it's been working fine since.

I've had bad connections in the past, but usually the system wouldn't even boot, or windows wouldn't load.