Random freezing issues, help please

[Guest]

I'm completely computer stupid so if people would kindly hold my hand and
direct me through this I would extremely appreciate it.

I first started having issues with my computer completely locking up only
when playing certain games from places like RealArcade/Shockwave/etc.

I have a VIA/S3G Unichrome IGP video card (I think that's the right name for
it) and updated the driver. Well that only solved part of the problem as I
still had freezing problems but not as often.

Well I thought I would just wait a while and find a new video card when I
saved up enough money.

Well now at random times my computer freezes up and I'm not even playing
games, sometimes surfing the web, sometimes not even doing anything.

First off, how do I find out what specific error happened at the moment my
computer froze?

And also, I'm sure you want details about my computer, how do I go about
getting those details (I'm way too stupid for my own good)

Any help that people can give me I would SO appreciate it.

 

[You Know Who ~]

I wonder how much ram you have and how much free space you have on your hard
drive. The freeze could be caused by a number of things including memory or
even your mouse.

 

[Guest]

960MB of RAM and my hard drive is 74.5GB with 44.0GB of free space

 

[Guest]

Hi there,

These kind of problems usually happen due to hardware faults..

You can test your memory if its okay or not from here www.memtest86.com.
You will have to download a small utility which will run and test your
memory for any kind of problem. If it does show a problem, you will have to
get your memory replaced.

If it's not a problem with memory, it could also be a problem with the power
supply. I had the same problem when I connected too many devices and my power
supply couldn't take it. And the computer used to hang at very unexpected
times. Try to find out the power rating of your power supply and if it's
enough to handle the devices connected.

You could also try adding a temporary display card to check if its a problem
with the display itself. From your post, it looks like this is an onboard
display card. That usually means there will be an AGP slot free for you to
fix a temporary card and check if that was the real issue.


Hope this helps


Arun Raveendran