Windows Vista - Desktop Computer Freeze (No BSoD)

[Auzama]

Well, my desktop computer has been freezing quite often as of late, and I have yet to see the blue screen of death, or any error messages... I searched around the forum but couldn't really find a problem too similar to mine... My general computer knowledge is average at best, so headaches may ensue!

My computer started freezing up about a week ago and other than that it's been fine... I suspect there is a hardware issue, mostly because I've used this computer for about 5 years now, and there have been times I've left it on for over a week...

The screen will randomly freeze, all keyboard and mouse control is lost, and any sound that played at the time of the freeze is repeated like a broken record... I have to hold the power button down until it turns off, then I have to choose whether or not I want to run it in safe mode when I turn it back on... I have not chosen safe mode yet, and I find no error messages or anything like that...

I use Microsoft Security Essentials for protecting my computer, so I updated it and then did a quick scan not long ago... The scan didn't find any problems, and when I attempted a full scan of my computer it froze before the scan could finish... I don't recall visiting any suspicious websites or doing something that might infect my computer when it started freezing, but who knows...

I have also checked Device Manager for any red X's or yellow ! signs, and have found no red X's and only one yellow sign... The ! sign is a network adapter and the device status is: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)" I doubt that has anything to do with my problem...

The freezing seems to happen more often when I'm running many programs at once, especially games... I have however had it freeze while leaving it on with no windows open... The computer is usually quiet with a humming sound, so I assume at least one fan is working fine... I recently cleaned up the outer parts of the computer with a paper towel to remove all of the dust, which I probably don't do often enough...

I should also mention that I personally opened up my computer to install more RAM a few months ago, and everything seemed to work fine... I visited www.crucial.com to scan my computer for the right choice of RAM to buy, then bought it from the same website...

That about sums it up, I'm willing to try just about anything with my computer to solve this problem, so any and all help is appreciated!

Here is some of my computer information:

Windows Vista Home Premium
Service Pack 2
Dell - Inspiron 530
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4400 @ 2.00GHz
3GB of RAM
32-bit OS

My C: hard drive has 97.3GB free out of 288GB.
I use NVIDIA GeForce 8300 GS, version 260.99.
For protection, I use Microsoft Security Essentials.

(I'm not sure if that is enough information so just ask me to post more about something specific if need be.)

[BC_Programmer]

I've had this issue myself on a number of machines.

Every time, it turned out to be disk problems. Your Mileage May Vary, of course.

1. Start->Run, "cmd"
2. chkdsk C: /r   at the prompt

tell it yes to it's question to unmount, then yes when it says effectively "I can't do it captain" and asks if you want to schedule it when you restart; then reboot.

The scan can take a rather long time so make sure you have something else to do for a few hours.

[Auzama]

Alright, I did the scan... CMD never asked me to unmount anything, it just said "The type of the file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive." Then it asked about scanning when I restart... Do you need info about the scan or something?

[BC_Programmer]

No, not really. just let it run. It will either find issues (and hopefully resolve them) or not. In the former case with any luck it will stop freezing on you.

[Auzama]

Well nothing has really seemed to change, and my computer did freeze again while running many game clients... I've been using safe mode with networking a bit now and it hasn't frozen yet while in safe mode... Also, the last 3 times I tried to update Microsoft Security Essentials, my computer immediately froze during the update... Is there anything else I could try? (By the way, thanks for the help so far!)

[BC_Programmer]

well, assuming you used /r with chkdsk, all I can think of (and it working fine in safe mode points to it as well) would be drivers, but I can't think of a good way to determine which one... (although if safe mode with networking works we can probably eliminate the network driver...)

[Auzama]

Yea I typed "chkdsk C: /r" into CMD... Anyways, I left my computer on doing a full security scan in safe mode with networking and it froze, so I guess safe mode isn't as safe as I thought... I might try to do another disk scan, because I tried to update Security Essentials right after the scan and it froze up, so maybe it didn't even get the chance to do anything?

[BC_Programmer]

Yea I typed "chkdsk C: /r" into CMD... Anyways, I left my computer on doing a full security scan in safe mode with networking and it froze, so I guess safe mode isn't as safe as I thought... I might try to do another disk scan, because I tried to update Security Essentials right after the scan and it froze up, so maybe it didn't even get the chance to do anything?

right after the scan? It did scan after you rebooted though, right?

[Auzama]

Yes the scan did complete after I rebooted, but my computer only lasted about 5 minutes before freezing again...

[BC_Programmer]

Yes the scan did complete after I rebooted, but my computer only lasted about 5 minutes before freezing again...

Oh, OK, I misunderstood

In that case it probably isn't a disk error. That's the only time I've ever had  that happen; that leaves either hardware problems or driver problems.

One thing you could try, is booting onto a Linux or other bootable OS disc, and seeing if that freezes too.

[JJ 3000]

The ! sign is a network adapter and the device status is: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"

safe mode with networking and it froze

I'm confused.
How many network adapters do you have?
Can you post a screenshot of device manager? Please expand network adapters in the screenshot.

[Auzama]

I'm confused.
How many network adapters do you have?
Can you post a screenshot of device manager? Please expand network adapters in the screenshot.

Alright, here it is...

[year+ old attachment deleted by admin]

[Auzama]

It looks like I solved my problem, I tried a whole bunch of different things until I went to my Power Options in the Control Panel... I had set it to High performance, and now I've set it to Power saver... Maybe I was just pushing my computer too far, because it has not frozen once in normal mode in the past 3 days... I also learned a few things from this whole ordeal, so I'm pretty happy... (Thanks for all the help!)