PC works great here, freezes at location.

[Vickip]

Hello everyone...

I have a problem that has got me banging my head...I have a customer's pc that runs great here at my house...but freezes constantly when at the customer's home. This is clean install done about 3 weeks ago.

The times it does this doesnt seem to point to any particular reason. It happens when on the internet, using either IE or firefox, when accessing Money or a website building software, while trying to burn a disk...also, the cd drives will lock up and refuse to open...sometimes she loses the mouse and has to force a reboot.

As you can see, it freezes up pretty much all the time....but it runs as smooth as butter here at my house...In fact, Ive tried to get it to mess up, but it wont!

Ive ran tufftest, memtest, (tested extensively...and not a single hiccup) and they dont detect any hardware failures..I am also using her keyboard and mouse.

The only other items attached to the pc (while at customers home) that is a printer, monitor, and comcast broadband (cable), hard wired to router.

Here are the specs;

Win98 SE, fully updated
PIII 733 w/256 cache
512 mb pc133 ram (2 x 256 matching sticks. good quality, no cheap stuff)
Tyan Thunder motherboard, latest bios updates
Intel chipset, updated
Savage 2000 64 mb agp video card, latest drivers
Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet Adapter(NC100 v2)
Western Digital 80 gig Hdd, split in to 2 40 gig partitions
Lite-On LTN483S 48x Max [CD-ROM drive]
SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252S [CD-ROM drive]
2 onboard usb 1.0 ports
1 Nec usb 2.0 pci card
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
Microsoft PS/2 Port Mouse

EPSON Stylus C84 Series on LPT1:

Well, I think that's about it....any ideas anyone???!!

Any and all help/ideas/etc...would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks in advance, Vicki

[brandon184]

You've tried hooking up the PC at the customer's location without any peripherals attached, except for the bare essentials?

[Vickip]

well...thats a problem....you see, I live in Oklahoma, and she lives in Texas..she hasnt lived there long enough to know of a tech that she trusts....so she still sends it to me...

I really expected the problem would be ram or video related...so I didnt even tell her to unhook the perif's....it wasnt until I got it back and it ran perfectly that I thought it might be one of them...

BUT..have you ever heard of a printer, monitor, or internet connection able to wreak so much havoc? hmm....could it be network noise?

[brandon184]

One machine I worked on had countless problems when I would return it to their shop and boot it up with the printer attached via USB. Oftentimes I couldn't even get it to boot into Windows. However, this issue was resolved by formatting the hard drive.

Since you do live quite a distance away, I wouldn't bother messing around unless you have no other option. Backup and format and then provide instructions on getting her peripherals reinstalled. You may even be able to provide interactive assistance via VNC.

Brandon

[Vickip]

Brandon,

I've already done that....and the printer is on the lpt port...but now you've made me start to think that may in fact be the problem..

Thanks for replying!

Vicki