Resolved Devices go 'missing' from Device Manager, Motherboard Issue?

Hi. Very often (almost always) when I watch a streaming video, some 3 or 4 minutes into the video the whole PC freezes (not just IE). No keyb, no mouse, no Ctrl-Alt-Del; it needs a total reboot. This happens in both IE8 and Chrome. This problem is fairly recent (say, about two months - I've been experimenting to try to identify the problem, but without success).

I've tried closing Outlook before browsing, in case automatically polling my mailboxes in background is the cause, but it's not that. I've also tried setting Memeo Instant Backup to "Suspend until system idle ", also with no effect.

Interestingly it happens only on this PC (see system details), but not on my wife's ancient laptop, which is on a home network with the PC. Makes no difference whether her laptop is on or not. Both are XP Home SP3 and fully updated.

I can't think of any other clues or tests to try. Grateful for any advice.

 

Adobe.com > Disable graphics hardware acceleration (Windows XP)

?

 

Hi, Doc, and thanks for the tip, but no - it didn't fix it. In fact, the video became very shaky, jerky, and the audio came only occasionally as quick bursts of sound. Then at 2:07 everything froze again as before.

I've no idea whether this is relevant, but I've also noticed recently that the light-blue screen with the Windows logo and the list of accounts for choosing to log in has recently started not to blink on, immediately fully formatted, but instead fades in with a sort of shudder, taking a second or two to settle down. May have no importance at all, but I mention it in case those who know more about this stuff than I do recognise something relevant there.

I'm running six hours ahead of you here, and I'm logging out for the night. I'll check back in tomorrow morning my time.

 

Thanks, Arie. Yes, in fact this morning I wanted to use Google Earth for the first time in many moons and it also stumbled across a graphics card issue, and suggested updating drivers, among other ideas.

Because of a bunch of commitments it'll be a couple of days before I can get down to this, but it's certainly the first thing I'll look at. And I'll report back here, whether successful or not.

 

Matters have now gone steeply downhill, and this has become a hardware issue.

Following Arie's and Doc's advice, I started looking at the Device Manager page on My Computer > Properties, and discovered that I don't have a sound card any more! In the sense that it's not listed as a peripheral. I opened the case, made sure it was properly seated and wired up - still no card. I bought another one - second hand, but still much newer than the 10-year-old nVidea one I had - and carefully plugged it in and connected it. No new hardware automatically detected and installed. No audio card listed on peripherals. I tried Control Panel > Installing new hardware, but it wasn't found.

Is there anything else I can do or try before assuming that the mobo is probably over the hill and it's time to go looking for a new PC?

 

(And should this thread be moved to the "PC Hardware" forum with a new headline, maybe something like Some devices suddenly "disappear "?)

 

Come to think of it, I'd pretty much forgotten, but a DVD drive also "disappeared" several months back. Didn't care because I didn't use it much. It's still there in Device Manager, but won't recognise, read or write DVDs or CD-ROMs. Don't know whether it's relevant, but it's similar.

 

Yep, it was a motherboard issue. My trusted local repair workshop told me it was not worth repairing, and I've now got a new box to build and break in. Shall update system specs in due time.