Hello all, I am some questions regarding a computer that isn't mine. My cousin has a Compaq machine that she says is about a year old. Due to our time schedules I haven't been able to get over there and look at it in person but I will be within the next few days and I thought I'd ask on here if anyone may have some answers to what could be causing the problems.
What information I do have is slim, until I get over there and look at it in person but I'll post what I do know. It's a Compaq from the stores, nothing custom at all except a new sound card that just bought two days ago. No one who uses is very computer experienced so they haven't do anything on the computer to it really except surf the internet and upload photos from their camera. The OS is Vista 32 bit and it has 2 GBs of ram. I did a system recovery on it 2 nights ago when I was trying to figured out was wrong with their sound, which it happened to be their sound card hence the new one.
They called and told me tonight that the computer locks up after being turned on for awhile when not being used. They said it's been doing this even before I did the system recovery. From my understanding if they leave it on for awhile without it being used it locks up completely. Mouse won't move, opening Task manger doesn't work, absolutely nothing.
If they manually shut it off after this happens the computer won't even load. It turns back on and a black screen pops up with some words, which they didn't write down so I don't know exactly what the message says. If they unplug the machine from the wall then turn it on it works fine again until they let it sit again. Which in that case it locks up again and they have to repeat the process.
I'm sorry for the lack of information, I figured I would post and hopefully get some ideas so when I get there I can get started right away trying to fix/figure out the problem, since like I said before, our time is limited for me to be over there. Once I get more information I'll edit my post with what I know. If anyone has specific questions feel free to ask and I'll reply once I can answer it.
Thanks to anyone who tries to help out, it's much appreciated.
