computer randomly freezes, what else can I do?

[KLC]

I'm about at the end of my rope with this PC. I built it with my sons in December of 2005:

Abit AN8 ultra
AMD X2 3800+
2gB Patriot RAM
EVGA 6800 GS 256mB
250 gB Western Digital HD
Antec Sonata II case
Thermaltake 430W PS (installed 3 months ago)
Windows XP Home

Things worked perfectly for more than a year. About 4 months ago it started making strange noises on startup and about 3 months ago it stopped booting up. After some great help from people here at the forums I replaced the power supply and it started up again.

Around the same time as the PS problems it started freezing randomly but only occasionally, maybe once every two weeks. Ctl-Alt-Del doesn't do anything, everything freezes and I have to reboot with the button on the case. After replacing the PS I hoped that problem would be solved also, I was wrong.

The freezing got progressively more frequent until it was happening two or three times an hour. I have spent hours googling the problem and looking at the Microsoft knowledge base. Based on that I have done the following:

Rolled back the video driver to the version that was on it at the beginning
Cleaned up the registry
Tested the memory with MS memory test program
Doing a repair reinstall of Windows

But the computer still freezes. Can anyone suggest anything else I can do to troubleshoot this?

 

[jaythespacehound]

Well, a nice way to rule out software is to format the drive and do a fresh install of windows...

 

[btcomm1]

Honestly it sounds like hardware, but you may want to back your data up and then do a format and reinstall just to be sure.

I would say from the sounds of it, my guess would be your motherboard is going bad but again if you wan to backup and format first that will tell you if it's hardware or software for sure.

 

[KLC]

You're right, I think it is probably hardware and I'm wondering if I wouldn't be better off just going out and buying a new Core2 duo MB/CPU/memory.

Let me display my ignorance with two question that maybe you can answer or just steer me in the right direction:

1. I do have a second internal HD in the system for transferring and editing video. Is there a way I can use that 2nd HD to make the reformat as painless as possible?

2. If I bought a new Intel MB/CPU/RAM would I just plug the old HD with XP into or do I need to reformat given the new CPU?

Thanks for taking the time to reply

 

[jaythespacehound]

1. You could back up all your important data onto the second HDD (any data on it won't be deleted however some programs you may have installed on it would no longer work)

2. You would almost definitely have to reformat. Even if it did miraculously work it would work badly so a reformat is an absolute necessity for that kind of hardware change