PC problem - please help

snaver

esuhl wrote: »

Have you determined whether it's a hardware or software issue yet?

No, sadly not, esuhl!

snaver

Just to update you all... I removed the RAM card I put in on Sunday evening and the computer has worked fine... until lunchtime today, when it froze I rebooted at 4.00, as soon as I discovered what had happened, and it crashed again an hour later.

I called the Lenovo tech support line and the lady (who didn't seem to understand my problem), emailed me a graphics driver update to see if that works, before the dreaded factory ****ing reset. Fingers crossed this works! I'll keep you posted.

GDB2222

snaver wrote: »

No, sadly not, esuhl!

If you return it with an intermittent fault, they'll scrub the hard disk and reinstall W10, then return the PC to you for further testing. So, it's obviously a waste of time.

I'd remove the RAM you installed and see whether the PC's working better.

Ditto with any USB devices.

I'd make sure all the RAM and cards are firmly seated.

Then I'd try a new PSU, as I have a known-good spare handy (only if this is a desktop PC, not a laptop).

If none of that works, I'd make a local backup of the data plus download the drivers from Lenovo, and scrub the hard disk and do a complete reinstall of W10 and the drivers. Then reinstall the programmes I use and the data.

And if none of that works, it's a hardware fault!

esuhl

snaver wrote: »

No, sadly not, esuhl!

It should only take a few minutes. Don't be put off by the fact that Slax is Linux-based. You don't need to configure anything or know anything at all about Linux. Just see if it works and if the problem persists.

I always like to check the "easy" things first, before pulling apart a computer or wiping the OS, or putting it in for repair.

Johnmcl7

I'm not sure if I've missed anyone else asking this, have you checked the event logs to see if there's anything happening on the PC just before it freezes?

I agree with AndyPix that freezes are usually a hardware issue.

Also I wouldn't reinstall the OS even with an option that keeps the files until they're properly backed up locally because if anything goes wrong with it there's too high a risk of losing data.

John

psychic_teabag

AndyPix wrote: »

Its usually RAM too
Next I would be looking if there is any pattern to the freezes, ie are you always in the middle of the same thing when the system freezes ??

or just boot into the free memtestx86 utility, which gives the memory a thorough going-over.

(In the "old" days, building a linux kernel was the ultimate memory test : pcs which could run windows just fine would freeze when building the kernel because it was so compute- and memory- intensive.)

psychic_teabag

esuhl wrote: »

You could download a live GNU/Linux distribution such as Slax, burn it to CD/DVD (or stick it on a USB stick), boot from that, and see if your PC still freezes and plays up.

http://www.slax.org/enGB/

If it all works fine, you have a problem with Windows.

Hmm - not sure - if it freezes when using windows intensively, and works fine when booting into linux and just moving some windows around lazily, then you're not really pushing the hardware as hard.

esuhl

psychic_teabag wrote: »

Hmm - not sure - if it freezes when using windows intensively, and works fine when booting into linux and just moving some windows around lazily, then you're not really pushing the hardware as hard.

True. I just reread the OP and saw that the problem sometimes doesn't occur for a few days, so you'd have to be using Slax for quite a while to be sure that the issue doesn't occur (as opposed to "hasn't occurred yet").

In that case, I'd probably install Windows onto a spare hard drive, and use this "clean" OS for a while to see if the problem occurs. If not, then you can migrate your data/files to it.