Computer keeps freezing up?

[Lorrae]

Hi everyone :)

It has been awhile since I posted a problem on here. I am having a problem where my computer keeps freezing up on me.

I opened the side, it is warm but the fans seem to be working, there is air blowing from the back so I think the powerpack fan thingy is working. I have no idea why this is happening. It has happened more over the last two days and I have to do a reboot. Last night it happened and it made an odd noise, sort of a soft grinding noise. It cleared up after about 5 minutes. Today it has frozen up on me about three times in the last few hours. I don't know what to do. I get no messages giving me a hint as to why and I am not too knowledgeable at what to look for.

Another thing that has happened, which might or might not be related is that my video card gave me an message 2 days in a row each time I was on warcraft. I was playing Warcraft .. single player campaign .. I got a video card message saying that the video card had some kind of an error and computer did a recovery on it. It has happened about 3 times. Yesterday, however nada. I don't know if that could be related to the freezing up problem or not, the freezing up started a day or so before that?

I was running trendy free scan and half way through my computer froze up again. After reboot it is ok for a bit then does it again.

I hope someone out there can give me some ideas on what might be wrong. I would very much appreciate the help. Thankyou :)

My system stats are: Windows XP Pro, I have Windows Antispyware program.
AVG virus scanner, free version.. (recent version)
AMD Athlon (tm) proswssor, MMX, 3d now, 1.9GHz
Bios Phoenix - AwardBios v6.00PG
512MB ram
DirectX 9.0c
Raedon 9200 AGP .. 128.0 MB
Vynal AC'97 audio (wave)
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
80G HardDrive, 57.9 free space left on it.

I am not sure what else you might need to know, I hope this is ok.
Thanks again and looking foward to any help you can give me.

[Lorrae]

As an add on to the above question, the other problem that I am also having, which might or might not be related to my computer freezing up is, I get a message saying this program is not responding. I get hourglass until I shut it down or close it. WordPerfect does this, WoW does once in awhile only when I am shutting it down, IE when I go on it to surf some times. It might not be related as I said, but thought it might signify something I should fix or look at? .. thanks

[rcdraft]

grinding noise? That can't be good. What kind of drive?, and how old? May be a hard drive issue.

[Lorrae]

I am not sure how to describe the noise it made.. but it wasn't too noisy.. sort of a drone I guess... like the computer was doing something but it was idle. I was just sitting there trying to figure out what was wrong.

It was upgraded in December and has been doing ok til now. It doesn't seem to freeze up as often if I just do nothing, I try to download or duel task and nada.. have to reboot.

Is there a place to test ram or anything like that? What bothers me more is that it is quieter than it was.. to me that is odd .. air is coming from the back of the computer, and the little fan is working on the motherboard .. so no idea but the freeze ups won't allow me to even update things. Could it be a virus or anything like that or more a hardware problem perhaps? Thankyou for the response :)

[Superman3332001]

Here is a site if your intrested You may have to leave it to overnight to complete a full test.

http://www.memtest86.com/

[andyman]

first guess ... A fan is on the way out.
a good trick to find the noise is to use a paper towel Tube held to the ear and move it around till you isolate it.
if it's a Power Supply Fan (PSU) around $50
if it's the Chip Fan (CPU) around $20

[sickcars]

First thing that came to my mind when you said you heard that sound was he HardDrive, But you also said that your computer makes less noise now. That could be a bad thing. My guess is one of your fans have stopped working or is just barly working and is causing your computer to overheat and that could be why your having all these problems.

I would probably have a friend/Family Member that is good with computers to have a look at the computer as this Could be somthing seriouse.

But first thing you hould do is Back Up All Important info just incase it is your harddrive that is going bad.

Latz

[Lorrae]

Thankyou for the responses :)

I do, however have a new problem, my computer keeps rebooting. After much frustration I noticed that each time it comes back on a pop up happens and it is checking yahoo pop thingy. If I don't crash then, a box opens that is rogers self healing thingy.

This a.m.I was unable to get on the computer without it rebooting.. I turned off my avg and the pop up stopped. i am able to come on here but I either freeze up or reboot when I do anything.

Another thing I noticed was .. I called Rogers thinking maybe it was yahoo messing me. He had me check a few things, one being Physical Memory:Total 523750 - Available - 314524 .. system cache - 158680. The Rogers fella said that should be enough to do things without problem but questions why I am using so much ram when I am doing nothing but sitting on desktop.. that is when I read the ram thingy.

The other thing is, temp of computer reads cpu - 60 c/140F .. sys 40F/104F.
Is that high? The CPU Fan speed is 4218.

Clicking on the red X when closing a window seems to freeze me most times as well. I did a system restore to Tuesday, can now click on things and it not freeze me that way although still have freeze ups just not as much.

Sorry for so much info, but hopefully that helps to pinpoint more what my computer is doing. Amazing I can actually be on here. My son in law suggests re format? I am holding on that until i find out if I am looking at a big problem hardware related of maybe fluky avg or windows problems?

Thankyou in advance for any and all suggestions :) If there is a positive to all this is in the fact that I am learning a lot that I never new before.. so that is a good thing :)

[batkinson001]

I dont know about the ram issue but the temps are horribly evil. get the comp taken in and thouroughly checked by a specialist, fans have been going or have gone (the grinding noise that then stopped - I know this due to my experiences with my comp powersupply), which case, you need to have them fixed or replaced.

[Lorrae]

I dont know about the ram issue but the temps are horribly evil. get the comp taken in and thouroughly checked by a specialist, fans have been going or have gone (the grinding noise that then stopped - I know this due to my experiences with my comp powersupply), which case, you need to have them fixed or replaced.

Ok, thankyou. I was going to re format, but I think I will take your advice and hopefully that is what is wrong as my fan/power supply is still under warranty. Thanks again for the response:)

[batkinson001]

no problem. hopefully thats all thats wrong. *crosses fingers*

[Lorrae]

no problem. hopefully thats all thats wrong. *crosses fingers*
Following advice that it might be fan/power I went to TCM and they had a look at it, it was my fan/pp. They fixed it all up and all seems to be working fine. I did get another fan put on it, and hopefully that will solve the heat issues:)

Thankyou again for the responses. It can be frustrating for me when I am not sure what to do and the help on this site is fantastic and very much appreciated :)

[batkinson001]

you are most welcome, glad I could help.