computer freezes

  • Thread starter Thread starter brian
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brian

My brother's computer had an older version of windows and
started to crash all of the time. I couldn't seem to
find the problem and wiped the drive and re-installed all
fot the software. It worked for a little while and
started to freeze again. I bought him windows XP in
hopes it was just a OS problem--and once again it worked
fine but i just got a call saying that it began to freeze
again. He said once the computer is turned on, within
minutes it locks up. He didn't load any other
applications, though he did go on the internet to play
card games and such. Is this merely a virus problem? Is
this a hardware problem? Do i need to throw this
computer out a 40 story building? Please help.
 
brian said:
My brother's computer had an older version of windows and
started to crash all of the time. I couldn't seem to
find the problem and wiped the drive and re-installed all
fot the software. It worked for a little while and
started to freeze again. I bought him windows XP in
hopes it was just a OS problem--and once again it worked
fine but i just got a call saying that it began to freeze
again. He said once the computer is turned on, within
minutes it locks up. He didn't load any other
applications, though he did go on the internet to play
card games and such. Is this merely a virus problem? Is
this a hardware problem? Do i need to throw this
computer out a 40 story building? Please help.
Click to expand...

It sounds like a hardware problem; most likely issues are a disk drive
slowly failing (it can take a year to die completely, but in the meanwhile
drive you nuts), memory module bad, power supply flaky, CPU fan failing
.... or even just anything relating to overheating. In rare cases, it can
be a mfg issue on the motherboard where a separation starts, made worse as
the system heats up.

First steps usually are:

- Remove the case cover & see if it runs better
- Visually inspect CPU fan & Power Supply fan to make sure they are working
- Use built-in tools to check the hard drive; open My Computer,
right-click C:, Properties, Tools, Check Disk and select the options to
thoroughly check.
- If there are two memory modules, remove one at a time & see if the
system freezes up with only one module in; if this works for one, then
you know the other is bad and has to be replaced.

It's not very likely a virus survived a disk wipe & OS change.
 
There are freeware/shareware programs to check your memory. I had a similear
problem and debuged my machine in a similiear fashion by removing all the
card and putting them in one by one until I found the problem was with the
memory. Bought new memory and my trusting old 400 MHz celeron is back in
business. It even runs xp pretty good.
 
brian said:
My brother's computer had an older version of windows and
started to crash all of the time. I couldn't seem to
find the problem and wiped the drive and re-installed all
fot the software. It worked for a little while and
started to freeze again. I bought him windows XP in
Click to expand...

Hardware or driver problem. If you have this sort of problem the LAST
thing you want to do is install another OS in an attempt to fix it.
 
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