Desktop crashes at will.... Get me a beer.

[mdub707]

Ok I have a desktop I've had since probably around 2005. My roomies in college built it for me (they selected the parts, and pieced it together). I've learned some about these, but software and problem solving get me every time.

Ok right now I just completely formatted the hard-drive and reinstalled Windows XP. I was running two 120gb hard drives. One was IDE and the other SATA. I just ditched the IDE because it was having issues and was really slow loading. I believe it was crapping out. So now I'm using the single 120Gb SATA drive. Just got XP up and running again, nothing on it but XP SP2 right now, java, and mozilla firefox.

It is randomly freezing on me. I dont get the blue screen of death or anything, it just completely freezes. This has to be a hardware issue, but I dont know where to start...

I'm not even sure what info anyone would need to diagnose this, so ask away.

If it freezes, I hit the restart button, it reboots right back up and when I open mozilla it will restore all of my pages I was just on... then away I go until it randomly freezes again. It doesn't really seem to matter if I have a ton of pages open or just one. It seems completely random.

Thanks for any help.

[Davey~do]

Memory error or power supply going bad. Download memtest86+, burn the iso to a cd and boot off of it. If your memory passes this test the next thing I'd look at is the power supply. It's probably not supplying enough power on your +5V (I think that's the one) and causing problems. The only solution for that I know of to replace it. The only way I would know to check what your power supply is putting out is to check the bios for the voltages.

Sorry, not much help but maybe that will give you a direction to start in anyway.

[mdub707]

I have a spare power supply in my parts bin buried away somewhere, would it be worth just switching to that to try?

I'll download this other deal and try it quick... if I can actually get it downloaded without the damn thing crashing again. I'm ready to put my foot through it.

[Davey~do]

Sure, swap out the power supply and see what happens. It only takes a few minutes of your time and might solve your problem. I'd wait until after I ran the memory check though. That is my first suspicion on random blue screens, esp. those involving browsers....

Did you manage a clean install of XP or did you have any problems installing it, like having to install 3rd party drivers or having to start over because of some error?

[dereku]

It can also be a software problem or even the harddrive.

I have had this happen when I formatted a HD and re installed windows. You can always format the HD again and try to install windows again. Also download all the available updates too. SP3 might help because I know mozilla does have compatibility issues at times.

[mdub707]

I had no issues installing XP. I installed SP2, but not SP3 yet. I do NOT get blue screens or anything of the sort, it just freezes right up. Last night I couldn't even get on here to type a reply it was freeze up that fast upon booting. I couldn't even get the memtest downloaded before it froze. I'm on my gf's labtop now.