Computer freezing, dont know why

[Mr_Happy]

for a while now my computer has been randomly freezing, as in cant move mouse, nothing responds, have to restart comp, and ive tried this & that & i cant figure out why its doin it. The only pattern that i have found is when i need to finish homework then it decides to stuff up & freeze numerous times until i give up & go 2 bed. I can run any game fine, no probs with crashing or ne thing (other then the normal occasional, game ****s itself & crashes) but never ne probs with games. it only freezes when doing simple tasks eg. reading emails, talkin on msn messenger, watching a vid, doing homework, browsing internet, i think you get the idea. Ive had a feel aroud the case & componentss for any heat issues & the only component that is even warm to touch is the southbridge, could this be the cause of my problems?:?

Im running:
2.8ghz p4 proc
radeon 9800pro 256mb
80gig hdd
1gig ciarsair ram
300W psu
2 case fans, 1 intake, 1 outtake
mobo: ECS elitegroup L4VX2

any help will be greatly apreciated, thx

[DaveW]

Probably shouldn't be touching those components btw.

Sounds like it's a software issue more than anything else, i'd run Adaware and AVG antivirus, both of which are free and fairly good, and see what they find. If it happens when you're online you could also try Zonealarm, a pretty decent firewall for free.

Who doesn't like free stuff :)

Oh, and if by chance you have Norton...it might need updated. Personally i don't like Norton and Symantec for their business ethics and quite frankly poor quality software, but it gets bundled with a lot of PC's so if you have it it might we worth updating or turning off. I've seen a lot of people who have a symantec product have their computers crash randomly.

-Dave

[Cevinzol]

You said its been happening for a while.
if its possible to remember when it started you might be able to narrow down the cause. Was it after a hardware upgrade or software install? What O/S are you running? A non-repeateable problem is hard to narrow down and takes longer. Try running in safe mode for a night. If it doesn't lock up its software for sure. Then you can start narrowing things down by disableing apps that laod durring boot up.

[DaveW]

disableing apps that laod durring boot up.

to do that, hit Start->Run->msconfig

change to selective startup on the first screen.
Then it services, and hide all microsoft ones; anything you don't recognise, get rid off.
Then clickstartup, and remove anything you don't fancy the look off, although be careful because your audio drivers etc. are all in here. Don't worry too much, you can turn stuff back on afterwards if trouble starts.

Simply apply and restart, then enjoy your new settings.

Note: You can also do this to "tune up" your computer.

-Dave

[Omega]

Your problem is the fact that you have a P4.


Just kidding.



Do what all they said, it's probably a software issue.

[Rankenphile]

Are you overclocking your system at all?

[Mr_Happy]

the only over clockin im doin is on my gfx card, & i was gettin crashes way before is strated that. tried re-formatting & still have same prob. by "felt components" i mean touched the heatsinks of the components to see if ne thing was hot ;) , im not all stupid:rolleyes: . i have noticed that if i leave my computer on (eg. while i was @ school) it was still working when i got home, but if im using it to do stuff then it dies.

[nil8]

Do you have 2 sticks of memory or only one?

If you have 2, swap them out and test each one overnight for locking up.

This problem only occurs when you're loading things into memory it sounds like, and you might have some bad ram.

Doing menial tasks on a pc doesn't require much from your proc, but can require a good chunk of your ram.

If you have one, see if anyone else you know has similar memory and test it out the same way.

Hope this helps.

[Viper-Inc]

my old machine used to do this alot.. though then about a week-month later the gfx card completely fried. so i do not know if it is the same for u..

does it freeze on bootup or at windows login screen or windows desktop before doing any tasks? if so u could have a similar problem as i used to have. though don't have a solution 2 as i bought a whole new system as the old 1 was very out of date.

[Mr_Happy]

i shouldnt be getting gfx card probs as this is a relatively new card (original 9800pro died then got a replacement a couple months bak) & ive got 2x512 sticks of ram, ill give each stick a go @ seperate tiems some time this week & ill see how that goes, im planning on upgrading soon as this current setup annoys me & is gettin a bit out of date, mainly because of the **** mobo;)

thx for the help so far, it has been very helpful

[Mr_Happy]

within 5 mins of above post ^^^ i got 3 crashes :mad: this computer is starting to anger me :mad: if it happens again ill go with out msn & see if it works fine, if not then ill try the different ram sticks out

[edit]closed messenger on startup, i havnt had any freezes so far, hopefully wont get any more freezes now[\edit]

[nil8]

Are you running 2k or xp?

If you're running XP, and msn messenger is causing lockups, I know a trick to removing it from the system. You can download it from msn.com instead, and windows won't rely on it to successfully work. This means that if it crashes, it will just bring up that stupid program error box and not lock your system up.

[Mr_Happy]

well ma comp seems to be running fine again. i may have posibly had a dodgey 9800pro bios, coz i was lookin round on the net for random crap (as i do when im bored) and i came across how to flash ur 9800pro to be a 9800XT. did all that, checked to see if ma board could handle it by putting it to 9800XT clock speeds & all, flashed it, & now i havent had a single crash so far. so something worked when i did that. thx for the help, ill keep your surgestions in mind if i have any probs again.

MrHappy:D