I posted this in TW Tech a little over a week ago, but since then the situation has changed (gotten worse) and I need help.
About 2 weeks ago, my computer started randomly freezing. This usually happened when there were a lot of graphics on screen, like when I was playing a game or watching a movie. The frame would freeze, and my system would lock up completely. No hard drive activity, no CD activity, just a screen with a single image on it. At the same time, I also started getting random explorer.exe crashes. These usually happened when I started or stopped doing something, such as opening/closing a program, clicking the start menu, etc..
It wasn't too bad at first, and usually only happened once every 2 or 3 days, so I didn't think much of it. In the last 3 days however, my computer has frozen at least 5 times a day, and explorer.exe crashes have gone up too. I thought it might be a RAM problem, so I ran memtest86+, but my machine passed every test with no errors. This leaves me with either a bad video card, or a dying hard drive.
I figured before I go out and buy new hardware, I'd try re-installing windows to see if there might be some problem there that would cause it. This morning, I rebooted with the CD in, and started a fresh install. I started with a full disk format, but my computer froze after it was 14% complete. The screen stayed where it was, and there was no HDD activity. I waited 10 minutes, and nothing happened, so I powered down my computer and waited about 20 minutes to try again. On the 2nd try, it froze at 21% complete.
I'm not really sure what the problem is, and I'd rather spend the money in the right place, so I'm hoping someone may have some idea of what's wrong. If it helps, here are my system specs. Most of the components are ~3 1/2 years old, except the DVD-RW and TV Tuner. Also, I'm running WinXP SP1 (I tried SP2 last night, but that didn't help).
AMD Athalon 1.4ghz
Asus A7M266 Motherboard
512mb crucial PC2100 RAM
GF2 Ultra AGP
Two IBM Deskstar HDDs (60gig and 40gig)
Pioneer DVD Drive (don't know model #)
Sony DRU510a
ATI TV Wonder Pro TV Tuner
SB Live 5.1
Realtek NIC (Don't know model #)
Enermax 470W PSU (6 months old)
And I think that's about it. Thanks for any suggestions
About 2 weeks ago, my computer started randomly freezing. This usually happened when there were a lot of graphics on screen, like when I was playing a game or watching a movie. The frame would freeze, and my system would lock up completely. No hard drive activity, no CD activity, just a screen with a single image on it. At the same time, I also started getting random explorer.exe crashes. These usually happened when I started or stopped doing something, such as opening/closing a program, clicking the start menu, etc..
It wasn't too bad at first, and usually only happened once every 2 or 3 days, so I didn't think much of it. In the last 3 days however, my computer has frozen at least 5 times a day, and explorer.exe crashes have gone up too. I thought it might be a RAM problem, so I ran memtest86+, but my machine passed every test with no errors. This leaves me with either a bad video card, or a dying hard drive.
I figured before I go out and buy new hardware, I'd try re-installing windows to see if there might be some problem there that would cause it. This morning, I rebooted with the CD in, and started a fresh install. I started with a full disk format, but my computer froze after it was 14% complete. The screen stayed where it was, and there was no HDD activity. I waited 10 minutes, and nothing happened, so I powered down my computer and waited about 20 minutes to try again. On the 2nd try, it froze at 21% complete.
I'm not really sure what the problem is, and I'd rather spend the money in the right place, so I'm hoping someone may have some idea of what's wrong. If it helps, here are my system specs. Most of the components are ~3 1/2 years old, except the DVD-RW and TV Tuner. Also, I'm running WinXP SP1 (I tried SP2 last night, but that didn't help).
AMD Athalon 1.4ghz
Asus A7M266 Motherboard
512mb crucial PC2100 RAM
GF2 Ultra AGP
Two IBM Deskstar HDDs (60gig and 40gig)
Pioneer DVD Drive (don't know model #)
Sony DRU510a
ATI TV Wonder Pro TV Tuner
SB Live 5.1
Realtek NIC (Don't know model #)
Enermax 470W PSU (6 months old)
And I think that's about it. Thanks for any suggestions