PC keeps freezing randomly.

GSDog

GSDog

GSDog

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Hi all.

My parents PC has been having some problems which started a few days ago out of the blue.
The PC has been running fine for several months and nothing has been installed or changed to cause this.
Basically it keeps randomly freezing and I have to manually switch it off and on again. I've checked the event viewer and nothing out of the ordinary is showing up; could that mean that it's a hardware problem?
I think I've noticed today the hard drive seems to be a bit noiser than usual but I want to rule everything else out first before attempting to buy any new hardware.

How can I tell whether it's a software/driver issue or a hardware problem?

Specs:
Windows XP Home / SP3
Intel P4 Northwood 2.6Ghz
512MB RAM
120GB Maxtor HDD (about 5 or 6 years old now I think).
Corsair 460W PSU

AFAIK there are no other devices installed and the PC is only really used for browsing/emails. I'm sure it's not a virus because it's running on a limited user account and I've done a thorough virus scan.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Have you checked the temperatures?Maybe the CPU is overheating or even the HDD.Maybe you should also consider a clean reinstall of the OS.
 
Ast3r said:
Have you checked the temperatures?Maybe the CPU is overheating or even the HDD.Maybe you should also consider a clean reinstall of the OS.
Click to expand...

Not yet, but I will do. The case has 2 x 120mm fans which are blowing out cool air.

The problem has got much worse since starting this thread, it's now freezing almost immediately after turning the PC on, even during the BIOS startup. I guess that rules out a problem with Windows. It's definitely pointing towards a hardware issue now.

I was trying to backup all the documents to my external hard drive and the first time it failed with a message saying something like this:
Windows - Delayed Write Failed. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or a network connection.
Click to expand...
and it froze up again.

Luckily the second time was successful so I've managed to backup all their documents. It's now freezing literally seconds after booting into Windows. It seems to be getting worse.
 
The same sort of freezing happened to me not long ago, It would be random at times but it eventually started to freeze moments after booting up like you.

I solved mine by basically cleaning all the dust away and securely connecting everything again. Its run fine ever since.
 
Parky said:
The same sort of freezing happened to me not long ago, It would be random at times but it eventually started to freeze moments after booting up like you.

I solved mine by basically cleaning all the dust away and securely connecting everything again. Its run fine ever since.
Click to expand...

I'll try that later, thanks.

Westyfield2 said:
What's safe mode like?
Click to expand...

Exactly the same, it freezes before it even loads.

Several times now the screen has been blank when I turn the PC on, it won't even show the BIOS screen and none of the keyboard lights/mouse lights, etc. work. Does that mean it might not be the hard drive?
I thought if it was the hard drive it would at least be able to boot into the BIOS.
 
Ok didn't realise it was occuring outside of windows alothough the error message you posted indicated this.

1) Get some air duster take the pc out side and give it a good blow out. (do not use a hoover you'll kill the PC)

2)Check all connectors are seated ok power up the PC. If it still freeze's goto 3

3)unplug all you hard drives and remove all peripherals and expantion cards. All you want connected are your graphics card keyboard mouse and monitor.

3.1)If it does not freeze and the bios posts plug in your OS Hard drive, if it then freezes locks up as I said its your HDD or the RAM.

4)If it still freezes and wont post the bios a)your Gaphics card is going b)your power supply is going.

5)Get a new PSU first then Graphics card.

6) if none of the above works, bin it and get a more update PC!
 
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Cool Breeze said:
Ok didn't realise it was occuring outside of windows alothough the error message you posted indicated this.

1) Get some air duster take the pc out side and give it a good blow out. (do not use a hoover you'll kill the PC)

2)Check all connectors are seated ok power up the PC. If it still freeze's goto 3

3)unplug all you hard drives and remove all peripherals and expantion cards. All you want connected are your graphics card keyboard mouse and monitor.

3.1)If it does not freeze and the bios posts plug in your OS Hard drive, if it then freezes locks up as I said its your HDD or the RAM.

4)If it still freezes and wont post the bios a)your Gaphics card is going b)your power supply is going.

5)Get a new PSU first then Graphics card.

6) if none of the above works, bin it and get a more update PC!
Click to expand...

Ok, I just got rid of all the dust and reseated everything except the CPU but it made no difference. I'm stilling getting a blank screen when I start the PC.
Everything seems to power up OK, including the hard drive.

I then unplugged everything except the graphics card and I heard 3 beeps, 1 long beep followed by 2 short beeps. I think that means no RAM detected, so I installed the RAM and it stopped the beeps but I still get nothing on the screen.

I'd be surprised if it's the PSU because it's the newest component in the PC. I only bought it 6 months ago from OcUK. It's a Corsair CX 400W.
 
Well in that case, it could also be the motherboard!

But also still could be ram. It will be a pain to trouble shoot.

Don't rule out the PSU it could have had a rail gone down and that would be enough to upset things. I had a 1000W PSU that would post and run fine 1in3 times towards the end of it's days and then would not post at all I swapped Motherboards tested with different Gfx cards HDD's unpluged etc it was a right pain in the rear. Bought a new PSU and all was fine, the symtoms my system exhibited were as if one of the GFX cards was on the way out. But it was a rail on the PSU had gone. This PSU was 2 years old though.

But like I said don't rule it out. you may have to purchase a new one or borrow one to rule it out.
 
sounds like your parents are running windows vista, am i right ? but it sounds like a HD problem, do a scandisk on it. do no scan ban sectors but click the box to fix errors, it might require a reboot. see if that resolves it.
 
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Cool Breeze said:
Well in that case, it could also be the motherboard!

But also still could be ram. It will be a pain to trouble shoot.

Don't rule out the PSU it could have had a rail gone down and that would be enough to upset things. I had a 1000W PSU that would post and run fine 1in3 times towards the end of it's days and then would not post at all I swapped Motherboards tested with different Gfx cards HDD's unpluged etc it was a right pain in the rear. Bought a new PSU and all was fine, the symtoms my system exhibited were as if one of the GFX cards was on the way out. But it was a rail on the PSU had gone. This PSU was 2 years old though.

But like I said don't rule it out. you may have to purchase a new one or borrow one to rule it out.
Click to expand...

I know I have some spare RAM somewhere so I will try it out. I also have a CPU in my brothers old laptop which is also socket 478 so I could try that too.
I've also got a spare motherboard lying around but I think it's faulty and I'm not sure that I want to plug stuff into it incase it goes wrong.
The only components I don't have to try out is a PSU and GFX card.

If it was the GFX card, surely the keyboard and mouse lights would be working? When I turn the PC on none of the keyboard lights work. I'll try different RAM, CPU, Motherboard and hard-drive, if that doesn't fix it then I'll know it's probably the PSU or GFX card.
 
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Right, I just tried a different stick of RAM (it was a stick of DDR PC2100 RAM from my old Dell; the only spare stick I could find) and it didn't fix the problem.
I've also tried a different GFX card and hard drive, again from my old Dell computer, and that didn't fix it either.
So it looks like it's either the PSU, motherboard or CPU.

Edit: I just checked the PSU voltages with a multimeter and they look fine. I'm starting to suspect the motherboard now, so I'm going to swap it for my spare one and see what happens.
 
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I had a similar problem recently - turned out to be the DVI port on my monitor.......What a pain in the back side that was - pulled the whole PC apart and swapped out various bits of kit, RAM, CPU, GPU etc I didn't think it could be the monitor as my mouse wasn't getting power nor my keyboard - little did I know that the DVI connection is tested before allowing the pc to boot up.

If you haven't already - its worth a bash.
 
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