Crashing / Freezing Pc

[leeajohnson]

Hi recently my pc has started to freeze quite alot for no reason, when its doing very little!?

 

Any ideas how to tackle this?

 

Lee.

[Flair4it]

How Recently

 

Hi Lee,

 

could you please give us more detail about your problem,

 

How long has this been happening,

 

Have you Anti Virus / Malware Protection?

 

Have You Installed any Hardware or made any changes to software?

 

What is your Systems Spec as well??

[Dalo Harkin]

Can you please also try and be specific about the RAM when you post back in terms of make and model and size of the RAM you have and what OS you are using and the GPU and PSU too :)

[leeajohnson]

hi guys

 

the problem is that 3 times today this pc has just froze and so i have to restart the pc.

 

this has only been happening for a day or two but i have had a few problems since i have been using it for teh past 5/6 days.

 

firstly the pc kept cutting out, to which i took the fan and heatsink out and cleaned it - since then it hasnt cut out at all.

 

secondly the display was slow at scrolling, to which i reinstalled the graphics drivers from the installation cd.

 

I have downloaded avg anti virus 8.0 free edition, Nero 6, Skype, Office 2003. installed a webcam.

 

I am using xp pro (2002 ed) with sp2, amd 64, 2.00ghz, 1.50gb ram

 

not sure on the other bits

 

cheers

[Dalo Harkin]

So you took the CPU fan off? did you plug the cable back into the motherboard - sounds like the PC is freezing due to heat build up - did you put compound mixture under the CPU heatsink (do not try and do it without posting back on here first please)

you can check the CPU heatsink fan though

[Guest Wolfeymole]

One and a half GB of RAM Lee?

 

What have you got exactly regarding that?

[Dalo Harkin]

One and a half GB of RAM Lee?

 

What have you got exactly regarding that?

 

think wolfey means do you have a 1GB stick and 1 512mb or 3 512mb sticks etc

[leeajohnson]

yeh the fan is working ok and i didnt put compound mixture under the CPU heatsink.

 

i'm not sure on the ram as i didnt put it in my girlfriends dad did - is there any easy way to check this?

[Dalo Harkin]

CPU-Z will tell you - ok we need to get this clarified - did you just clean the heatsink on the CPU or did you take it off the CPU and clean it??

[leeajohnson]

i took the fan and attached heatsink off the computer and cleaned it then replaced it.

[Dalo Harkin]

was there any grey/white mixture on the underside of the heatsink - and did you clean it off with TIM?

you need to have a compound mixture between the CPU and Heatsink as it transfers the heat - as there is none the BIOS is shutting the PC down to stop the CPU getting damaged

[leeajohnson]

sorry mate i'm not that experienced!

 

dont think there was any 'mixture mixture on the underside of the heatsink ' not that i looked too closely i didn't clean any off the pcs only 3-4 yr old so will it be ok?

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok - when you took the heatsink off could you physically see the top of the CPU -

If you take the heatsink off you need to replace the compound - its easy to do, and you cant really mess it up :)

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok this is what the top of the CPU would have looked like after you took the heatsink off (this is a GPU just using for clarity)

[leeajohnson]

ok thats not what it looked like under the heatsink, it had to be removed from something that it clipped into.

 

i was able to remove the fan and the heatsink (the large metal cube with fins on it) and on the underside were loads of pins?

 

i couldnt see the mother board as there was like a base unit for the heatsink.

 

i hope this makes sense to you?!

[Dalo Harkin]

I hope not - it sounds like you have lifted the lot up - the heatsink just sits on top of the CPU (the CPU is what is locked in place by some mechanism that basically folds over the edges of the CPU and is locked inplace by an arm - if you lifted the heatsink up and there were pins underneath the pins are the bottom of the CPU and that sits in the Motherboard.

did you rest the pins on anything?

[leeajohnson]

oh!!! ....

 

well in order to clean the heatsink and fan as advised i had to unscrew the heatsink when i removed the screws i lifted off the unit and then unscrewed the fan (as was unable to remove the fan without removing the heatsink as the screws were upside down when looked at from above).

 

i tried not to rest the pins on anything, i put the unit sideways as i thought they may have been pretty important! so no i dont think i rested them directly ontop of anything.

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok - it doesn't sound like you have caused any damage then :eek:

and on a positive point you won't need to replace the compound lol

 

ok so you put the CPU and Heatsink combined back in the PC the way it came out etc and put the fan connector back in the CPU header (the three pin white thing on the board it came from)

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Before you replace the cpu lee look very closely at the alignment of the pins on each angle of the square cpu, if any pins appear to be bent let us know now.

[leeajohnson]

yep all sorted and it runs fine nice n quiet as before.

 

it may have been this webcam that i installed as i have now uninstalled it and not been any probs yet but just anooying as i use it quite abit.

 

 

????

[Dalo Harkin]

sounds like you need a different driver for it - visit the manufacturers website and get the latest drivers

[leeajohnson]

hi

 

a different driver for what exactly?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I think Dalo was referring to the cam Lee, if all is running ok now then fine.

 

Is this the case?

[leeajohnson]

the pc was for a while but has done it again and crashed! i havent reinstalled the web cam either?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

The PSU is knackered Lee.