What would cause a computer to randomly lock up?

[futurefields]

In the past 18 months since I built it, my computer has locked up about 3 or 4 times. So once every 3 or 4 months basically I'll get a random lock up. Its not every 3 or 4 months on the nose every time, im just saying, its happened that many times in about 18 months.

Is this just par for the course with PC's, or is it likely there is something else at work here?

 

[Virgorising]

In the past 18 months since I built it, my computer has locked up about 3 or 4 times. So once every 3 or 4 months basically I'll get a random lock up. Its not every 3 or 4 months on the nose every time, im just saying, its happened that many times in about 18 months.

Is this just par for the course with PC's, or is it likely there is something else at work here?

Am sure the helpers here will want you to pls post yr specs.

And someone will suggest you run a crashDump app to get hard data. Denis in Canada always recommends one called Whocrashed.

This could be just a software conflict of some kind, or even a driver issue. Do you correlate anything with when it happens? Being on a given site, using a given app, gaming, etc? Does it happen only when the system has been up and running for a given time? Do you keep the interior clean? Did this start right off when U fiished the build, or after some time?

Worse case scenario=overheating.....but lots of possibilities to explore before that.

 

[denis280]

What are the event when that happen.

 

[Virgorising]

What are the event when that happen.

I just mentioned you above!()

 

[denis280]

Denis in Canada the Canadian Whocrashed.

:biggrin:

 

[Virgorising]

:biggrin:

()

Cept YOU don crash, you recommend Whocrashed.()

I asked if he could correlate these infrequent freezes with anything tho he did say "random," but maybe he can think back.

 

[Ketchup]

Great answers so far for you futurefields.

I usually put crashes into two categories: those that create a minidump and those that don't. It really does seem to narrow things down a bit, as I bet we'll see in upcoming posts.

 

[Steltek]

Also, if you don't have any monitoring software installed, try installing SpeedFan or HWMonitor so you can watch the CPU and GPU temps as overheating can also cause lockups.