Computer locks up randomly

[Stravos]

I've been running this rig for a little under a year now without a hitch, but just recently it has started to freeze fairly randomly. I've tried to narrow down the problem by pinpointing an action I take before it freezes, but it even freezes while idling. I ran memtest for 10+ hours and it passed every test every time, no errors at all and it was still running at the end. It seems like the lockups are happening more and more often, but it could just be me getting impatient. I tried a fresh install of Win XP but it froze during setup. Right now my guess is a HDD problem, but it sometimes freezes when there would be no reason for it to access the HDD. I'm really at a loss here. Almost ready to start buying parts until it stops freezing :/ Anyway, specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ ClawHammer
Gigabyte K8NS XP
2x512 OCZ PC3200
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 400
Maxtor 40gb and 80gb, 7200rpm, 8mb cache
Audigy 2 ZS
Radon 9800 Pro
LiteOn CDRW and a floppy drive


Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[montag451]

most probably a psu issue, or a RAM issue.

Looking at the specs for your psu and ram, i would hazard a guess that it is time to purchase a nice shiny expensive named brand reliable PSU

 

[Stravos]

Wouldn't it be likely that it would freeze during the 10+ hours I ran memtest? Both those tax the memory and PSU more than just idling for 10 minutes, which is about the average time it takes to freeze :/

 

[montag451]

whatever


- that was just my opinion

 

[LiLithTecH]

Have you updated any drivers lately (specifically the CREATIVE)?

Also, what Service Pack are you running?

 

[fishmonger12]

what kind of ocz ram is it? just normal value series?

how much voltage are you giving the ram?

are you sure you have all your drivers up to date? have you installed sp2\done windows update? have you run adaware\Spybot\virus scans?

try running prime95.

 

[Stravos]

I'm running SP2. THe OCZ ram is the premier series I believe (one step up from performance, which is their value series) and it's getting 2.7v. I hadn't messed with any of the drivers until it started freezing, then I decided to update all of them. I haven't run adaware or any others, haven't done Prime95 either. Right now it's to the point where it will freeze about a minute after logging in, or sometimes before I even get a chance to log in.

 

[Fern]

If you have some concerns about the HDD, go d/l Powermax from the maxtor website. They have two free proggies for the d/l, Maxblast and PowerMax, IIRC PowerMax is the diag software.

 

[Stravos]

Tried to run Maxblast, but it gave me an error about not being able to load dos. I tried a different HDD altogether and it froze at 91% copying files in Windows setup. Seems like either a power problem (thought wouldn't it reset?) or mobo/cpu... ugh, this isn't the time I wanted an excuse to upgrade

 

[LiLithTecH]

Its doubtful that you are overtaxing the PSU.
Lack of power doesn't always mean a PC RESET, it may be a borderline
output on one of the voltages that doesn't effect the motherboard.

Have you tried removing the AUDIO Card from the PC?

 

[Stravos]

I just tried it without the audio card, it got to completing installation in windows setup then froze up. I'm not sure why it ran longer this time. If the sound card had soemthing to do with it, or if it was because it had been off for a solid day or two...