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.)