Screen Freeze Problem

[Richard]

I have a three year old HP Desktop running
XP SP-2. For the last three weeks I have experienced
Screen Freezes. They started out happening every few
days and have progressed to 3 in a five minute period
early today. I cannot detect a pattern to the problem.
However most occur while I am online. The screen will
freeze and the only way to break out of it is a hard
reboot by powering down. Alt Ctrl Del does not do anything.
Sometimes the screen goes blank for a second or two
and then comes back but within 30 seconds or so it then
freezes.

I have run the HP tests that came with the computer
but none of them fail. I have scanned the computer with
Avira Anti-Virus, Windows Defended, and Spybot but they
find no problem. I suspect a memory or graphic card
problem but I don't know how to tell for sure and I don't
normally go inside my computers.

Thanks for any guidance you may be able to provide.

Richard

 

[DL]

www.memtest.org
For a bootable memory testing utility from floppy or cd
Could possibly be heat related issue are all vents clear?

 

[Unknown]

Check your fans for proper cooling. Clear dust from components.

 

[meerkat]

I have a three year old HP Desktop running
XP SP-2. For the last three weeks I have experienced
Screen Freezes. They started out happening every few
days and have progressed to 3 in a five minute period
early today. I cannot detect a pattern to the problem.
However most occur while I am online. The screen will
freeze and the only way to break out of it is a hard
reboot by powering down. Alt Ctrl Del does not do anything.
Sometimes the screen goes blank for a second or two
and then comes back but within 30 seconds or so it then
freezes.

I have run the HP tests that came with the computer
but none of them fail. I have scanned the computer with
Avira Anti-Virus, Windows Defended, and Spybot but they
find no problem. I suspect a memory or graphic card
problem but I don't know how to tell for sure and I don't
normally go inside my computers.

Hi Richard, go have a look in your Event Viewer, to see if
there are any errors/warnings.
Rt click My Computer/ Manage/Event Viewer.
Then check in Apps, and System.

bw..

 

[Richard]

Thank you all for your quick responses.
I had consider heat might be the problem
and I will blow out the dust bunnies.

Thanks
Richard

 

[Richard]

I cleaned the dust out of the computer and for
about 24 hours there were no problems. Then
it started to freeze again. I checked the event
log and under system I found the following
error Service Control Manager Event 7000 seems
to be occurring whenever it freezes.
It also seems to be happening most when I
try to move a group of files by dragging with
the right mouse button.

Again thanks for any help.

Richard

 

[Unknown]

Do a Google search for 'control manager event 7000'.