Plagued with crashing and freezing problems

[Peronix]

Lately my PC has been either blue screening, black screening, freezing, or randomly restarting.

 

The funny thing is, this only seems to happen near the startup. If it gets past a certain point, say 10 minutes without a total system failure, it won't happen again until I restart the computer again.

 

At first I thought this was a memory problem, so I ran a memory diagnostic but it came out fine. Should I run it again or what? I also ran a scan that found and repaired several corrupt system files, but that didn't fix the problem.

 

Obligatory specs:

 

System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64x Build 7600

CPU: Intel Core 2 Qual CPU Q9400 2.67 Ghz

RAM: 8 GB RAM

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 230

[D. V. Devnull]

Peronix, I suggest you check your attached devices and system driver files for them, as well as device driver files for the motherboard chipset and such. It sounds to me like one of them isn't getting along with your computer. :huh:

 

If it isn't that, then I would seriously check your system with an alternate Power Supply if I were you. Power glitches are rare things, but if one happened without causing your computer to totally shut off, it could result in some of what you're seeing and/or be causing some physical damage in your computer. BTW, you do have your PC backed by a UPS with proper surge protection, right? :|

 

~D. V. "Can't blame you for being bewildered..." Devnull

[Markup]

Post bluescreen error information?

c:\windows\minidump

[Peronix]

http://www.mediafire.com/?ytgi9pip7o5apk6

 

Only two minidumps in there. Most of the time the computer just black screens, restarts, or freezes without actually crashing and producing a minidump.

[Lord Diddy]

Type msconfig in the Run window and edit the startup tasks to make sure there aren't any programs aren't causing this. Maybe along the lines of a program scanning, connecting to internet, or edits somthing when windows boots.

[Peronix]

OK, it's definitely not software. -.-

 

My computer won't start up at all anymore. Well it will, but instead of loading all I get is a continuous "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-" sound. When it does actually start up properly it freezes up very quickly even before it gets to the OS proper... it even froze up when I was looking at the BIOS.

 

So since I already ran memtest86 with no problems it could either be the PSU, the GPU, or the godamned motherboard (which always seems to be a candidate for ALL hardware problems).

[Guy]

If the board has integrated graphics, try them out to eliminate the GPU theory. I'm thinking it is probably a problem with the motherboard. You could always do some power checks on the PSU, or hook it up to another computer. However, I don't know what a faulty PSU would do to an otherwise perfectly working kit of hardware.

[D. V. Devnull]

However, I don't know what a faulty PSU would do to an otherwise perfectly working kit of hardware.

Heh... It could do any one of a number of things, including frying the hardware and/or undervoltaging it. None of them are easy to recover from. Sometimes however, you can get back up just by replacing the PSU. Why? Because there was simply not enough power being supplied, and therefore the motherboard and/or peripherals weren't hit by what was going on. ;)

 

~D. V. "Yeah, I know... It's crazy stuff..." Devnull

[Peronix]

/Facepalm

 

I opened up the case on my computer and was immediately greeted by a cloud of dust. I should have figured it was dust that was causing my hardware problems... yeah, anyway needless to say after I cleaned it my computer stopped freezing. At least for now. Only time will tell if that was actually the whole problem but...

 

Let this be a lesson to all lazy people like me: clean the dust out of your PC periodically.