System freezing

[Guest]

I've just installed a new motherboard and processor, AMD 3100. I had to
repartition and reformat the hard drive. But now I find the computer freezing
on me. I've been noticing it happens when I've been inactive on the computer
for a while, or many times while I'm surfing the net. The only think I can do
is hit the reset switch to startup again. I thought it might be a conflict
with the sound card on the motherboard and my Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2,
so I disabled the sound card on the motherboard. It's still happening. (I'm
still suspicious about this one, because the sound cracks when I turn the
system on.) I also thought it might be a misconfiguration with the router I'm
using, so I re-installed that. No difference. I know there's a way to
troubleshoot the problem, but I don't remember how. Does anyone know how I
can check out what's happening and why? I'd really like this thing resolved
soon. I've been already a week and a half trying to get the system back in
operation. I'd appreciate your help.

HS Dad

 

[Chelsea]

Try running the PC for a couple of days with all acceleration on the
graphics card disabled. Right click desktop-select settings tab-press
advanced-select Troubleshooter tab-under Hardware acceleration move the
slider to the None marker. If the PC doesn't freeze up, move the slider
slowly to the right over the next couple of days until the problem reoccurs.
Also consider monitoring your CPU temperature-it's possible that you havn't
achieved a good thermal contact with the heat sink. An overheating CPU will
lock up the PC and/or cause spontaneous rebooting. Also check all the fans
are running.

Chelsea

 

[Guest]

Tried as you said and set video acceleration to zero. Within five minutes the
system froze again.

 

[Guest]

I don't think overheating is the problem here. My motherboard is a Micro-Star
International RS480M-IL, which has a heat monitor built in that will tell me
if it is overheating or not. It runs on an AMD 3100 processor with 1G of RAM.

I'm finding that the system will freeze when I'm a way from the computer for
a season. There won't be anything running except the items in the system
tray, which I have selectively chosen to run. I would still appreciate any
input as to why this is happening. The XP Pro installation was a fresh one
and tests on the drive indicate it's running just fine. (It's only 9 months
old, too.)

It will also stall while I'm downloading things via torrent. This is really
quite frustrating!

HS Dad

 

[Guest]

I should also mention that the system freezes almost always when Outlook
Express is trying to download messages. I find it's less hassle to just go to
the site and read messages that way rather than having to go through the
process of a frozen system.

HS Dad

 

[Chelsea]

Hi again,
this is starting to sound like a hardware fault probably on the motherboard.
Did you run a burnin test when you built the PC? How about the memory is it
all the same speed? Is the FSB speed correct for your processor? I'm afraid
there are so many variables when building a PC. You might get better help by
going to the website of the motherboard manufacturer-hopefully there will be
a newsgroup like this.

chelsea