Freezing & Resetting randomly

[enemy]

Hi! I was just wondering if any of you could help me out with this problem:

The computer will freeze and then (sometimes) reset itself after its frozen, this can happen while browsing the internet, using Word, Excel etc, and whilst playing games.

It seems completely random as sometimes it will freeze as soon as the computer is started and loads into the desktop, or it might freeze after 1-2 hours.

The computer has recently come back from the local computer store where (under warranty) it had a new brand new Motherboard installed, new ram and a new Hard drive.

Before I took the computer to the store I've never had any trouble at all with freezing or resetting.

I've taken the computer down to the store since, and the technician has informed me that the Video card has the latest drivers, the lastest version of Direct X is installed, and that its been benchtested (everything worked fine).

He even ran a game on it at the shop for around 2 hours with no freezing at all.

But as soon as I got back home with it, I tryed to browse the net/play games, and it would freeze alot. It would then reset itself after freezeing about 10% of the time.

I then called the technician(who has always managed to fix just about any problem ive had before) and informed him of this and he told me it could be the powersupply and to bring it the next day.

Im yet to do this as it might just be a waste of time, and I wanted to get some different opinions on what to do.


I've listed my system specifications below:

AMD Athlon XP 1700+
256MB DDR RAM
30GB Maxtor HDD
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Gigabyte Socket A Motherboard GA-7DXR+/GA-7DX+
Standard 17" Plug and Play Monitor
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition

Hope I've been able to give enough information

:)

Thnaks for reading.

[mjc]

It sounds to me that it is either the power supply or your house's power.

The type of problem you just described, complete with the random intermitant freezes/reboots is a classic description of a power supply problem. With one exception, it ran fine at the shop.

So before you haul it back in, try it on another circuit (not just anouther outlet, one on another fuse/breaker).

If it is fine there, then you will need to have an electrician chek out the circuit you normally have the computer plugged into for overloading.

[enemy]

Sheesh, you dont mess around do you? ;)

I'll try that.

Thanks again.

[ski]

Hmmm......
I'm sure that this computer shop has good quality technicians who know their stuff, and that they are sincere in their desire to solve your problem.
However, unless you were present for the entire 2 hour game playing test, then I wonder if this shop is being completely honest about paying one of their technicians to play a game for 2 hours continuously, and swallowing the cost for his or her time?

Also, if there were a power supply problem with the house circuitry, then it should have been causing problems before you brought the computer back to the shop for warranty replacements. But you said that there were no problems before doing this.

I think that something is either not securely connected or fully inserted, the CPU or system is overheating, the RAM, MB, or power supply is bad, the power supply is being overtaxed, or there may even be an IRQ conflict with a network card(assuming one is installed).

[enemy]

Thanks for replying ski:

Apparently the technician went out on a housecall and left the game running. As far as I can tell anyway because I walked into the shop and it was with the game running at the back desk.

And yes, I've never before experience any type of power problems until now.

The system was running a little bit hot, so the technician installed a case fan. There is no fan on the Video Card and he said it may have been causing the system to overheat.

I dont have a network card.

The technician has run diagnostics tests on everything and benchtested all the hardware, with it appearing to work fine.

Ive tryed what mjc suggested, even took my computer over to a mates house to use his power, but had the same problem.

Looks like I'll just take it in tomorrow and get a new power supply.

[Whyzman]

If there are thermistors on your MotherBoard you might want to consider downloading MBM5 (http://mbm.livewiredev.com/). MotherBoard Monitor has gauges that can track each of the voltage rails independently.

If you set it up and you get a freeze, you might see something strange happening just before the outage...just a thought! :)

[Budfred]

It really sounds like a temperature problem to me too. Leaving a game running for 2 hours is really different from playing the game hard for 2 hours. I suspect your video card is overheating, but it could be more general than that.

[enemy]

Just thought I'd let you know what happened:

Ended up taking it in to get the power supply replaced, (I didnt think it was the house's power as all my other computers have worked fine) came home with a brand new power supply and it still froze.

Next day I took it in and apparently it was the video card, so he replaced it and it now works perfectly.