Help! Computer keeps crashing.

Muel · 15 Jul 2010 at 08:44

Yo, my desktop keeps locking up all the time.

After a couple of months of testing it and trying to sort it, I have a new motherboard and a new hard drive, but to no avail, it still locks up.

The only thing I have done that stopped it locking up was to run it from an IDE hard drive, then it stayed on non stop for over 3 days. So I concluded that my hard drive must be duff, and bought a new one, spent most of yesterday reinstalling and everything was rosy, then left it on last night moving some files and it locked up again.

Really am at the end of my tether with it now, can anyone offer any advice or ideas?

When it locks up, the desktop just freezes. Sometimes the mouse stays free for a while but it soon locks up as well.

Philtor · 15 Jul 2010 at 08:50

Im guessing you carried over the RAM from your old board when you installed the new one? Have you set the voltage and timings manually in the BIOS? I would even run Memtest over night just to be sure the RAM is not faulty. If it's not the RAM then I would hazzard a guess it's the PSU.

Muel · 15 Jul 2010 at 08:55

Everything is at stock settings. Normally I would agree with you, but then why would XP on an IDE hard drive run perfectly?

It has to be something with either Windows 7, or possibly that PSU cable. I've tried different SATA cables but I'll do it all again.

Philtor · 15 Jul 2010 at 09:00

Muel said:
but then why would XP on an IDE hard drive run perfectly?

Can't see it being related to SATA / IDE as you have changed the system board and HDD but the issue still persists.

Muel · 15 Jul 2010 at 09:06

Hmmm I agree. Maybe I have something installed that something else doesn't like. I have a list of programs I install straight away when I install windows, maybe one of those is playing up.

I have heard about W7 needing higher voltages for things than XP, but I'm not sure which ones...

There were other problems with the board by the way, it needed replacing but this issue lives on.

olivier renault · 15 Jul 2010 at 09:13

You can look into the event log in the administrator tools (control panel) and see if something comes up. Also check the startup programs,

Best running a free AV / spyware program if you haven't already (Microsoft Security Essentials, or Avast + spybot).

Ultimate Boot CD contains a host of tools to help you diagnose and check your PC health. Memtest, hard drive test, cpu test...

If you have lots of peripherals (hard drives, USB devices, expecially PCI cards, graphics card), I'd check for stability by removing them one by one. Having a PS2 mouse and keyboard handy helps.

Failing that, I'd check the temps / voltages (HW monitor), and run stress tests (Prime, furmark, HDtach). Then ram (memtest).. Would probably take you a weekend to run all tests :/ If everything runs fine, then I'd look at the PSU.

Muel · 15 Jul 2010 at 09:37

olivier renault said:
You can look into the event log in the administrator tools (control panel) and see if something comes up. Also check the startup programs,

Best running a free AV / spyware program if you haven't already (Microsoft Security Essentials, or Avast + spybot).

Ultimate Boot CD contains a host of tools to help you diagnose and check your PC health. Memtest, hard drive test, cpu test...

If you have lots of peripherals (hard drives, USB devices, expecially PCI cards, graphics card), I'd check for stability by removing them one by one. Having a PS2 mouse and keyboard handy helps.

Failing that, I'd check the temps / voltages (HW monitor), and run stress tests (Prime, furmark, HDtach). Then ram (memtest).. Would probably take you a weekend to run all tests :/ If everything runs fine, then I'd look at the PSU.

Already looked, not spotted anything of any use.

I only reinstalled W7 yesterday, but I'll do that anyway.

I have a USB mouse, keyboard, speakers and printer. Could a dodgy mouse really cause Windows to lockup though? Seems a bit unlikely...

All the temps/voltages look fine in HW Monitor, and I've already run Prime and Memtest, all came up blank. As I said though, works perfectly with the IDE hard drive and windows 7, so anything like that would effect both wouldn't it?

I have uninstalled Setpoint, as I've read a couple of stories online about it being funny. I've now checked the list of processes running, and googled them all. Nothing running that isn't vitally important. I've also installed all the latest drivers and updates.

I've just switched off Sata 3 support in the BIOS as well after reading this topic. They were complaining about incompatibilities between the F3 1tb and this motherboard with it enabled. Maybe that was causing my old F1 320gb to play up as well.