Computer keeps locking up

[kabir2]

Well, basically i have an old setup... i used to be into this sort of a thing about a year or 2 ago... right now, i'm running an Athlon 1700+ T-Bred B (not even overclocking anymore)

nothing in the computer is new so i don't even know where to begin looking to find the problem... all i do with it is play online poker and run winamp, nothing too intensive....

What happens is, every 4 hours sometimes even as much as 24 hours, the computer runs fine, then all of the sudden, the mouse stops moving, the music will stop, and the only way i can turn it off is to hold down the power switch....

is it just that my system is getting old and i need to upgrade... or is there something else that i'm completely overlooking

 

[Tlkki]

1. Adware/spyware, or stuff like that. Get rid of em.
2. Unistall everything you are not using, I have 38 running processes right now and i think thats a lot.
3. If you are using xp, try disabling mouse shadows and all sorts of animations. I do that, but not because my computer is freezing. I do it so it wouldnt.
4. Update everything.
5. Don't listen to music with your computer to see if thats why it freezes. My computer crashes sometimes because of foobar2000 (not so often, and i like foobar).
6. Reinstall XP.
Hardware:
7. Run memtest86 to see if its your ram.
8. Run prime95 torture for hours to see if its your ram or overall power consumption among other things.
9. Buy more ram. btw, how much ram do you have?
10. You could buy a new cheap computer.



EDIT: i mean, do the next step if the step before it didnt do it . I might have forgotten something too.

 

[kabir2]

money isn't a huge issue in buying a new computer... the damn thing crashing cost me a $700 pot playing poker last week... i don't ever want that to happen again...

there's no adware / spyware, the thing runs as well as the day i built it (err actually the day i installed the new processor)

i'll try running the diagnostics... in the mean time, anyone have any recs on what i'd need to set up a computer mainly used for internet poker.... and a stable board / processor / ram that will not crash on me

 

[kabir2]

seems like it was the ram... finally got around to testing some things out... i just came back from vacation and tried booting the computer, and it would lock after about 2 mins...

i took the following steps:

1) disconnected everything superfluous (CD roms, disk drives, 2nd graphics cards, 2nd hard drive)... didn't solve anything


2) tried booting off my 2nd hard drive to see if the problem was in the hard drive (froze after less than 2 mins)

3) downclocked my memory from factory default of 400 mHz to 333 mhz... and it seems to be okay for now... i'll by some more ram and see what happens...


edit... 15 mins after typing this up, the comp locked up again... now, i'm running in normal mode, and seems to be okay, but it could die at any minute