Freezing PC

jamrowls · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:40

My housemates PC keeps freezing, I though it would be heat so cleaned all the dust out and re greased the cpu. It still does it and at the time of freeze nothing is hot. Then I thought it may be a program...so I left it on the windows logon screen, it still does it. Any ideas?

semi-pro waster · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:48

When it freezes can you do anything at all or is it a complete lockup? You may want to try running a program such as either memtest or prime95(for the CPU) and see if they highlight any problems. You should possibly also check the PSU to make sure that isn't overloaded.

If in doubt the best thing to do is strip down to basics and build back up from there until you reach the problem again and that should hopefully highlight it.

jamrowls · 2 Feb 2006 at 17:56

Its a complete lockup, the mouse does not move - same as I get on my laptop due to heat.
Nothing has been changed before this started happening, so I guess some hardware is on the way out. Our pcs are different in every way so I cant do any swap tests.

Larok · 2 Feb 2006 at 18:32

Is he overclocking, check to bios settings and reset to stock. You could just try resetting the bios to stock anyway. Also what are the cpu temps etc.

Ashcrapper · 2 Feb 2006 at 18:56

jamrowls said:
My housemates PC keeps freezing, I though it would be heat so cleaned all the dust out and re greased the cpu. It still does it and at the time of freeze nothing is hot.

that sentence when read literally is totally insane

jamrowls · 2 Feb 2006 at 19:01

Its a she who has had the computer sat there working for a year or so and now it freezes, so everything is stock / standard settings etc.

Ashcrapper, made me laugh reading it back

Sputnik II · 2 Feb 2006 at 19:38

Try to boot up with a Linux live CD. That will tell you if its hardware or a corrupt OS install. did you notice anything damaged on the motherboard like blown or leaking capacitors?

Have you tried to start the machine in safe mode ?

jamrowls · 3 Feb 2006 at 10:44

It looks as if it was the OS, even when not logged in. Linux Live is very cool! I didnt know you could run an OS from a cd like that, anyway it ran for ages...booted back into windows and it froze in seconds. Thankyou