Shoutbox

Heres the problem. I have a custom built (over time) PC.

Now, recently, the PC started randomly freezing. Just totally stopped responding to anything - the screen was visible, nothing restarted or anything.

Im really starting to get peed off with it, as I recently bought myself 1gb RAM (previously was 256MB PC2700). However, since then, it seems to be more frequent.

The only other thing I have installed recently would have been AVG Free edition, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 + Soaked expansion (which works, even thought my GFX card is not apparently supported) and SiSoft Sandra Lite, and im doubtful its any of them!


Heres the specs (if I've missed any important ones, let me know )
Running: Windows XP Pro

Hardware:

AMD Athlon XP 2600+ running at ~1.29GHz
Asus A7V8X-X Motherboard
2x Crucial DDR SDRAM PC2300
64MB nVidia Geforce 4 MX ()
120GB Hard drive (cant remember make) - 3 Partitions - 58GB, 40GB and 16GB
DVD-ROM drive (Lite-On, dunno make)
DVD±RW drive (sony i think)

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Richard

Have you checked for viruses?

Try cleaning it out every now and then

Are you running any pointless programs? (such as WindowBlinds or DesktopX) These take up memory and since as it looks like you dont have a hi-tech graphics card...

Done a virus scan, done a spyware scan and nothing came up - they are both up to date.

I've closed all tasks in task manager (apart from system ones & explorer etc) but it still crashes. This is really beginning to annoy me now

Hmmm..... Does it make internal beeps or anything?

I get the same problems, sometimes. Whenever i'm using a lot of memory or try to install SP2 or WMP10 it freezes makes internal beeps and i have to restart...

Nope. No Beeps or anything, and i havent upgraded to SP2 - I know i probably should really, but I seem to have a grudge against it - I installed on my bro's PC and it kinda messed up some stuff so meh. It just randomly crashes, not specific to whatever I'm doing - sometimes when I'm not even doing anything at all! After a reset, it boots up, I log on and then it'll do it again...

Edit: It just did it again, and other than Explorer & system tasks, the only things running were Pc-Cillin antivirus ( running in background), MSN Messenger & MsgPlus!,  & Firefox. Oh and rundll32.exe, but I know thats for my gfx card - it did it before I had this running though too

maybe the pc is overheating?
since u have upgraded everything, have u put any fans inside the case to keep it cool ?

Well i shouldnt think it needs it..theres the main one over the CPU and the one on the gfx card, but the PC is standing on a box on the floor without the sides on.

MB temp is averaging around 33°C and Processor is about 52°C.

No idea about my gfx card though. I'm kinda hoping it is my gfx card to be honest, because its really out of date and i need a new one.

But for that I'll have to wait till I get paid my next months Disability Living allowance & I'd rather try and sort it before then.

once u get the money, search on ebay, unless you dont feel comfortable buying from there, you should cos u will some bargains on there

Yeah ebays cool Got my DVD±RW off it for £40.

My DLA is £162.20 a month, and i dont really have anything else to spend it on so I may get quite a good buy Unlike my dad and his £15 19" flatscreen monitor that never turned up....

But either way, could this be the cause? I'm starting to think perhaps it is, especially at the age of the card itself, but im still not 100% certain

Edit: Thanks to all who have suggested things. I resorted to putting in my old RAM to see if it made a difference, but to no avail. Then i saw that the GFX Card's fan wasnt spinning at all . So i took it out and im now almost certain that was the cause. I managed to get a large amount of dust from the fan and now its spinning properly I've had not one problem at all so far, so fingers crossed...