Friends new pc randomly freezes

friddela · 22 Dec 2006 at 20:03

Hello.. My friend recently bought a new pc the spec are as follows:

- intel dual core 6800 extreme
- nvidia 7600gt
- intel d975xbx mobo
- 2 gb ram

His computer freezes mainly when playing Counter-Strike, which shouldnt take up much power at all. He thought it was his psu, he bought a new one and it did the same. His CPU Temp. is about 45C whilst playing and 40C idle. He also said it takes 4 minutes to boot his pc, obviously this sounds wrong, wondering if anyone has any suggestions to what could be the problem?

thefishdude · 22 Dec 2006 at 20:18

had he over clocked it at all ???

Defcon5 · 22 Dec 2006 at 20:31

Didnt carry the hdd over from another pc did he?

friddela · 22 Dec 2006 at 20:44

He hasn't overclocked at all and he bought a new HDD also.

Trigger · 22 Dec 2006 at 22:04

What OS is he running? When you say freezes up, do you mean it is unresponsive and the program can be closed with task manager or freezes up and it can only be sorted by hard resetting the machine?

friddela · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:16

XP Pro.

It just freezes for about 15 seconds then goes back to normal. Happens fairly regularly though. Sometimes it doesnt come back though and he has to restart his computer.

Ste99 · 23 Dec 2006 at 01:02

Virus / Spyware Scan?

trojan698 · 23 Dec 2006 at 02:17

What PSU did he buy? If he bought a cheap generic one, it'll likely cause him problems and most likely not output the rated wattage.

4 minutes sounds hefty, might wanna consider running a HD diagnostic tool on his HD's to see if there anything up there.

Lastly I'd run memtest 1.65 (the bootable cd version) for a few hours to test the ram out.

Phil2008 · 23 Dec 2006 at 03:15

dogey ide/sata cable??

Cyber-Mav · 23 Dec 2006 at 03:48

do a memtest first

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 08:57

I'd agree with the others and say the RAM is at fault and would recommend running memtest for a while and see what it does. If it totally locked up and never came back without a reboot, I'd say the PSU was at fault

friddela · 23 Dec 2006 at 12:57

Cheers for the replies guys, i'll talk to him tonight and get him to do a memtest and find out what psu he bought.

friddela · 23 Dec 2006 at 16:13

Hes going to try and run the memtest now, even though i will probably end up making him the disk as hes a little noobish

.

Also, i found out that the psu he bought was a Colors-IT 550W Gold PSU, which to me sounds like a pretty awful psu, but maybe not i do not know.

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 16:49

friddela said:
Also, i found out that the psu he bought was a Colors-IT 550W Gold PSU, which to me sounds like a pretty awful psu, but maybe not i do not know.

I think you may well of just found your problem. I have one of those knocking about somewhere that I got as a freebie. Suffice to say, I've never used it- awful rails and badly built, IIRC it has about 17A on the +12V rail- minimum should be 24A. Tell him to get down to Overclockers and buy a decent PSU, as that contraption should certainly not be powering that lot :eek: