PC Freezing - Help!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Elite Ian]

My Desktop PC keeps freezing after various periods of use from 5 minutes up to one hour. After it has frozen it then has problems re-booting where it freezes at the bios splash screen. I have to remove all cd / dvd's from the drives to get it to re-boot.

 

The spec is;

Asus 3.4 ghz processor

1.5gb ram

512mb Graphics Card (Previously 128mb and had same problems then)

320 gb Hard Drive.

Running Windows 7 Ultimate.

 

I have replaced the graphics card and the hard drive but still have the same problems. Even tried formatting the hard drive and installing Windows XP but for some reason it wont allow me to do this.

 

Any ideas (other than take a hammer to it) would be very welcome?

 

Thank you.

[PseFrank]

Hi Elite Ian, welcome to Free Pc Help

 

Your post has been moved to its own thread, as posting in somebody elses thread can lead to confusion. Your problem albeit maybe similar may not be the same as another members.

 

My Desktop PC keeps freezing after various periods of use from 5 minutes up to one hour. After it has frozen it then has problems re-booting where it freezes at the bios splash screen. I have to remove all cd / dvd's from the drives to get it to re-boot.

Just what CD/DVD's do you have in the drive when trying to boot your computer?

 

Your problem could be heat related. When was the last time either yourself or a technician went inside of your tower and cleaned the dust and cobwebs away?

[Plastic Nev]

Just to add an explanation here, a quite common default setting is for the BIOS to look for an operating system on the CD/DVD drives first, if empty, then it goes to the hard drive. If any disk is in any drive at that time, the BIOS will see it, recognise it is not a bootable disk, so sometimes will stop dead at that point, especially after a shut down due to anything other than a normal user shutdown. So if possible always remove any disks, preferably before shutting down, or when the system forces a shut down, remove them before attempting a re-start.

Once everything is OK, it pays to go to the BIOS and change the boot order to Hard drive first. It is only when either installing a new operating system, or performing a repair of the operating system, that the CD/DVD drives need to be selected as first choice.

 

For the moment, Frank may well be right, a good clean out of dust may be all that is needed, it is surprising how it can build up and stop the cooling air flow.

Nev.

[DSTM]

Hi Elite Ian.Another point to remember,if you have Windows7 installed, and then install XP,your Boot Manager will longer work.Earliest then latest OS, is the correct install sequence.:)

[Dalo Harkin]

Its most likely that you recently changed/updated something recently and it has caused an issue.

 

5 minutes to 1 hour is not a heat issue, have you updated any drivers recently?

added any PCI/PCI-X cards to the board? added any USB devices etc?