Usual Causes Of Computer Freezing

thor

Right, my PC is starting to freeze up intermittantly so I have decided to look at the possible causes.
It is an Intel, XP system which has always been as solid as a rock til now. The screen just freezes with nothing moving and only a reboot will get it going again. It can happen at anytime and has occured during the bootup, while Windows has booted and even when shutting down which makes me think it is a hardware issue rather than the software.
My list of things to look at are:
PSU, Memory, Graphics card, overheating(in other words are the fans workong ok) and hard drive faults.
The only way I can think of to test them is by swapping each component out one by one and see how it goes but the problem is intermittant which is the worst type to try and sort out. Because of this and because I don't want to buy components needlesly I have just taken my pc apart to give it a good cleaning and to reseat everything in the hope that this will do the trick.
Should it start to freeze up again though I would be grateful of any advice.

unrich

I think you have it covered.

You could try a linux Live CD with the HDD out. Check network cables. Transfer big files across a network connection. Stick a surge surpression socket on the plug.

Reseat the CPU with better thermal grease and monitor the temp.

There are certain "diagnostic" programs that give the PC a workout. Memory checking, harddrive spinning etc

Cricri

You checked the fans, but did you check the heatsinks? If they are bunged up with dust, they become useless no matter if the fan works.

opportunity_cost

thor, I'd start with the graphics card. I once had a random freeze up problem with all the symptoms you describe. After some troubleshooting, I found the video card was to blame. I replaced it and never had any more problems.

fwor

opportunity_cost wrote: »

thor, I'd start with the graphics card. I once had a random freeze up problem with all the symptoms you describe. After some troubleshooting, I found the video card was to blame. I replaced it and never had any more problems.

I'd also look there, but one thing to try first is to update the graphics drivers. I've seen these symptoms on a friend's PC, and using the updated drivers offered by the "hardware" section of Windows Update solved it completely, without even having to go to the card manufacturer's website.

Must admit we were puzzled as to why the original drivers should work Ok for at least a year and then suddenly go bad. The most realistic sounding theory was that Microsoft did something in a previous update which caused the problem, but we'll never know for sure...

rdpro

In some cases, new graphics drivers exacerbate the problem, and it's necessary to use *older* drivers.

For 'burn-in' (testing) software, I recommend Sisoft Sandra Lite - free, and looks just like a normal control panel

thor

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I have already considered all of them previously(apart from getting new drivers but that is because my pc has been working perfectly for nearly 4 years) and will go about trying some of them out. Fortunately my little clean up and reseseating of the main components appars to be working so far as I've not had a freeze up for over a day now. There was a hell of a lot of dust in the case so hopefully that was the reason for the failures. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

bunter

defo test the memory using memtest86+ from here: http://www.memtest.org/