hp zv5320us freeze

my zv5320us has a problem with freezing up all the time. there is no pattern to it doing so. it has an amd xp1600-m cpu, compal motherboard, stock 256 memory w/512 added kahlon memory, cd/dvd. i have tried everything short of destroying the laptop to fix the problem: a tech from HP gave me some advise about flea power and defaults that seemed to work temporarily, a local tech had it for 2 hours@$60 and found nothing, i've removed software, reinstalled the xp OS, and as a last gasp, installed a new hard drive. i am out of ideas and almost out of patience. i am a disabled vet and cannot afford to ditch it and buy a new one; the new hard drive was out of budget, but i had to try something. i will provide any other information requested if someone could help with this vexing situation. thanks. Peace and God bless.

POW/MIA.........never forget; never again!

 

Hi djk,
Did the laptop slow down after you installed the 512 K memory stick? I ask this because I have an XP 3000 desktop and I put a second 512K simm in it that was not compatable to the first (ie Timing and latency was different) so my machine did not seem to do any better with it. I later bought a 51k stick that was on sale and loaded it into slot 3. It was compatable with the first and all of a sudden my machine became much faster. What happened was that the second upgrade stick was by the same manufacteror as the first and the two had close timing settings so the memory bus went into DDR timing mode. In other words the memory bus went up to 400 mhZ from the 200 it had forced itself into when the two sticks were not compatable with each other. Just something to check.

Don't know if your machine has any power management software but that is another place that might create that sort of problem.

Also make sure your disk is in the correct dma mode Ultra dma, ultra dma 5 etc.
Hope this helps

 

thank you for the reply. on the subject of memory, i matched the new memory with the existing via the kahlon website (all variables being the same as the factory) and i also reinstalled the original 256mb memory to check the new memory compatibility. the laptop froze up with the orginal memory and the new memory. there is no power management software installed other than the original from the hp cd. the new hard drive is an exact copy of the one that came out. again, thanks for the reply.