Computer Freezes

[shane25119]

Hi all,
I've been having problems with my computer lately. It's a custom built job with:

Abit mobo
1gb of ram
amd 2000 processor


A while ago the system froze on a regular basis and a flash of the BIOs and a reinstallation of the video card drivers and it ran fine for over a month. After coming back to college it worked fine... I moved the system about a week ago and well its been all downhill from there. The system froze like every night. So I took some advice from people online and I updated video card and mobo drivers and disabled the monitor turning itself off.. that worked for a day and a half. This morning the system was frozen. I should note that the heatsink on the processor is not the original, its one that is rated for my processor and has an adjustable fan speed. I usually have it on the middle setting, now I just turned it up to 3/4. Flashing the BIOS is not helping, sometimes even opening Explorer can freeze the system (I use Firefox). Any help would be awesome.. I'm getting just a little pissed off by it.

~Shane

 

[shane25119]

just figured I should add... the tempratures inside the system are all good.... nothing is hot, I cleaned dust off where I could, there really wasn't too much

 

[franklin97355]

Open the case and check to make sure everything is connected as it should be. Take stuff out and reconnect in case something is just a little bit loose. Test memory and hard drives.

 

[micker377]

Power supply may be failing. What size is the power supply? Defrag hard drive. Anti-virus and spyware scan. Check/replace IDE cable. Run memtest86. Tighten all boards and memory sticks. More info on system and what you have tried. Right now, we're at: "My car won't start sometimes, why?".

 

[shane25119]

Power supply is 400 watts. memtest86 shows no errors, virus scan is about 90 odd percent done, no spyware present, defrag is next up.

In the past this problem has occured. It was fixed by a simple flashing of the the BIOS and a reinstall of the video card. This time I have uninstalled the motherboard and video card drivers and then installed the latest versions of both. At the suggestion of a friend I have disabled the powersaving feature on the monitor. That worked for one day. For some reason running explorer as a browser makes it prone to lock up, although overnight freezing usually occurs explorer or otherwise.

This happened on the same system a long time ago and I misdiagnosed it as a hard drive problem which was fixed by replacing the HD. That hard drive is good now and in a server back at home. This hard drive is all good according to WD Data Lifeguard.

If you need more info let me know.

 

[shane25119]

all suggested steps taken... will keep you posted on the situation

 

[shane25119]

I've noticed that MP3's often clip at certain points.... could this be an indicator of anything? The clipping is like the telltale skip on old LP's, it constantly appears at the same points on certain songs.. but does not translate to the same spot on every mp3 (ie the clips are file specific). I updated my drivers for my sound card.... the system would not respond to restart requests and i had to do it by hitting the power button. Is there any chance this could be caused by the OS itself?