torrents freeze my computer

[firewound]

Hey Folks,

I've been browsing around the board and it looks like there are some very bright people around so I thought I'd see if anyone could help me. I'm having freezing issues in Windows.

Symptoms
-Running windows update freezes my computer every time. I am able to click on Express/Custom and as its checking for updates, the computer hangs and I have to restart.
-On startup, the computer gets to the Loading Windows screen (with the little blue scroller). Then, one of two things happens, I either load windows normally or there is no screen output at all and the monitor subsequently goes dark.
-Downloading torrents freezes the computer after about five minutes (in safe mode too). I've tried 3 different bittorrent clients - same result.
-Sometimes the computer will freezes a few seconds after successfully loading windows. (Same thing sometimes happens in safe mode too).

Configuration:
Core 2 Duo E6300
Asrock 775Dual-VSTA mobo (2.40 Bio)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
2x512 Xerox DDR400
2xSeagate 7200.10 320Gb hard drives

Here's what I've tried so far:
-Updated motherboard BIOS
-Tried putting in a different video card (Nvidia)
-Tried putting in differnet RAM, declocking it, lowering its voltage
-Updating motherboard drivers manually using the CD
-Removing all unnecessary PCI cards
-Formating the hard drive and doing a clean install
-Reinstalling the CPU to check for bad contacts (reapplied thermal grease)
-Changed the "IDE Drive Strength" setting, tried low, normal and highest


Update: I've done a bit more testing with the torrent program. I've noticed that the torrent program itself will not crash the sytem unless I run a torrent.

This computer issue has been a constant thorn in my side because I depend on my computer for a ton of stuff. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work guys!

 

[xSauronx]

has it been doing this as long as youve had the system, or did it work fine for a while? were there any hardware changes after which the problem arose?

 

[firewound]

hey xSauronx,

I purchased the motherboard and CPU a week ago. My hard drives were purchased less than a month ago. My RAM video card, sound card and network card are left over from my older system which is 4 years old.

The problem has been there since day one. I've tried running windows update as soon as I finished a clean install of windows xp, same problem.

 

[Grimner]

So you are running a brand new system with four year old components?
Well, that might be OK, but I suggest you start by throwing out the old network card and use the motherboard LAN instead. It should be better anyway, and it might solve what sounds like a network related problem (XP rather does want to talk with the network on start-up).

And unless the sound card is something special, same goes for that.

 

[firewound]

I've tried taking out every unnecessary component including sound card, network card, secondary IDE channel, USB and even tried alternating which RAM sticks I put into which DIMMs. Same problem still persists.

 

[btcomm1]

Ok, so basically you have dropped the computer down to just ram, video card, CPU, mobo and 1 hd, you have swapped out the ram and the video card and it's still happening right?

Only other thing is, have you tried installing windows on the other HD and left only that in? Also have you tried switching which IDE port the one HD that was left in the machine plugs into? If you do all that and it still happens it sounds like a bad motherboard or possibly a CPU but the motherboard is most likely the cause.

 

[firewound]

Yes...I've tried all that, didn't help. I've been convinced that it's the motherboard for awhile, but I just wanted to make sure because it's such a hassle to replace the damn thing.