Weird problem

[themikeman]

I wasn't sure where to put this so I just put it under general. Okay heres my problem.

To put it plainly, my computer just randomly freezes. As far as I can tell, it doesnt happen only at certain time, but is totally random. It freezes, and sometimes if i push the restart button on my box, it restarts but the monitor goes into its power saving mode, which tells me the computer isnt really restarting. Furthermore, sometimes when I just hold the on button and turn it off completely, and then turn back on, the monitor sill doesnt wake up, just stays in its power saving mode. I have no clue why this is happening and I'd like to know if this has happened to anybody else or if you have any suggestions.
Thanks, Mike

 

[4W4K3]

you're sure you have our jumpers set correctly? what kind of computer is this (manufactured or you built it) and how old is it? your video card might be going if it doesnt recognize it at boot up and it randomly shuts off the monitor.

 

[ZER0X]

Yer my friend had the same problem, but me and my other friend just figgured it was lack of RAM 64mb running windows XP

 

[Lorand]

It could be caused by defective memory too.

 

[kof2000]

probably if the video card is intergrated and runs on the pc's ram since it doesnt have its own onboard ram and then if you didnt have sufficient ram to begin with and you're running xp.

 

[Praetor]

Start some testing: cover the components one at a time: RAM, HDD, MOBO etc

 

[themikeman]

Will do.

Just for reference specs are:

Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Prescott
Crucial 1Gb PC3200
Western Digital 60 Gb 7200 RPM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

The whole pc, excluding the hard drive is less then 6 months old. I built it back in July or so.

 

[themikeman]

update...

ran memtest for 12 hours straight...no results

took apart the computer and cleaned all connections as best as i could, put it back together....nothin

as i type this i havent had it freeze in about a day, which is a good sign, but i have a feeling that it wont last much longer.

i have a feeling that it is my hsf, thermaltake polo, which puts more pressure on the cpu than i would like. installing it on P4's is really tight, and u really have to push down harder than normal to get the clips snapped in to the black frame. Has anybody with the polo had similar problems? its a pretty simple solution of bending some metal so that i dont have to push the clip so far down.

any other suggestions?