Okay so here is the situation. I built a PC for my son about five years ago, it has an ASRock Z68 MotherBoard (Pro series), Intel i5 3570k, a Corsair 650W PSU and he currently has a GTX 970. The CPU is overclocked to 4.2 or 4.4Ghz using the automatic overclock feature in the bios of the motherboard.
I'm going from memory here as I am not home atm and don't have an exact listing of parts - but I can provide a full listing later if needed.
Last year for his birthday his mom bought him a 120gb Kingston SSD (it was a real cheapie), but I installed it and did a fresh install of Windows 7 on it and used that as his boot drive. He has his OS on there and some games he plays regularly. He also has two separate 2-TB HDD which he uses for other games and to record video of his games for his YouTube channel.
I'm having two issues with the PC:
Problem #1; The PC will freeze up at Random. I don't think it crashes, but it becomes unresponsive - the screen freezes. He has to physically turn the computer off and then back on again using the power button. How do I diagnose this?
I didn't notice this but for about a year or so he had the feet kicked off his case so it was sitting flat on the computer stand - but of course the PSU is bottom mounted so I think it may not have gotten proper airflow - could that be causing it? I managed to find two of the feet and re-installed them in the back part of the case where the PSU is located to keep it off the bottom of his computer stand and increase airflow.
Problem #2; The Kingston SSD has gotten bog-arse slow over the course of the year. At first it was loading up Windows (and a game like Total War: Warhammer) like a champ; much quicker than his HDD. Now It is barely faster than a regular HDD. (I suspect this may be contributing to Problem #1.) Is there a way to restore this back to it's early performance or did I f-up by not making certain tweaks when I installed it?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
I'm going from memory here as I am not home atm and don't have an exact listing of parts - but I can provide a full listing later if needed.
Last year for his birthday his mom bought him a 120gb Kingston SSD (it was a real cheapie), but I installed it and did a fresh install of Windows 7 on it and used that as his boot drive. He has his OS on there and some games he plays regularly. He also has two separate 2-TB HDD which he uses for other games and to record video of his games for his YouTube channel.
I'm having two issues with the PC:
Problem #1; The PC will freeze up at Random. I don't think it crashes, but it becomes unresponsive - the screen freezes. He has to physically turn the computer off and then back on again using the power button. How do I diagnose this?
I didn't notice this but for about a year or so he had the feet kicked off his case so it was sitting flat on the computer stand - but of course the PSU is bottom mounted so I think it may not have gotten proper airflow - could that be causing it? I managed to find two of the feet and re-installed them in the back part of the case where the PSU is located to keep it off the bottom of his computer stand and increase airflow.
Problem #2; The Kingston SSD has gotten bog-arse slow over the course of the year. At first it was loading up Windows (and a game like Total War: Warhammer) like a champ; much quicker than his HDD. Now It is barely faster than a regular HDD. (I suspect this may be contributing to Problem #1.) Is there a way to restore this back to it's early performance or did I f-up by not making certain tweaks when I installed it?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.