Computer Locking Up

[Darkdreamer]

So I built my computer about 2 years ago and in the last few months I've been having a lot of issues I can't figure out what the problem is and I refuse to take it to some computer repair shop due to some terrible past experiences with other computers.

So my computer started freezing, and eventually it would blue screen. My first thought is that the motherboard may be going, so I ended up replacing that. Now with a new motherboard installed and a fresh Windows 7 installed on my SSD it's back up and running again. Now, the computer after about an hour locks up yet again; this time no blue screen. I've tried multiple browsers thinking that may be the issue but it even locks up when I'm in Word. I have no other noticeable indications and no errors to go off of to give me a clue. Once I do a hard re-boot to the system it starts working again, but only for an hour or so and it takes a shit again.

The only thing I've seen out there through reading is it may be my SSD is bad, my SATA cables are bad (these I replaced when I got the new motherboard), or my video card is bad. The SSD is only for windows, everything else is on a regular hard drive.

Anyone have any ideas? While I don't really need this computer for gaming anymore I do need it to function for my school work.

Thanks.

[RKenshin]

Are you noticing a spike in the resource monitor/task manager or anything when it locks up?

Something easy to try too that you didn't mention, is bad memory could potentially cause similar issues. Running a mem-test or removing a stick would be worth trying.

[NynJa]

Do you have a temperature monitor installed? Have you tried taking a can of compressed air to it and getting the dust out? Sounds like overheating could be the culprit to this, since you said you changed motherboard, but not processor or anything.

[Darkdreamer]

@RKenshin I tried keeping the task manager up and let it sit to see if anything happened when it decided to lock up and nothing happened.

@NynJa Correct, I did not replace the CPU, I monitored the temperature and there was no fluctuation when it locked up either.

[Nuriko]

I've seen bad/incompatible memory sticks do things similar to what you're describing. Did you replace the motherboard with the same model or get a newer one? A newer one might not support the old memory. Or, like a previous poster said, just bad RAM in general and a good test is to take a stick out and/or run a memory tester on all sticks.

[Darkdreamer]

My old board was discontinued so I ended up with a slight upgrade.

Here's the RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233144

New Board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157293

Old Board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128512

Maybe I overlooked something.

[Artemicon]

I agree with Nuriko I would try a bootable memtest86 image, you can get one directly from their site to auto install on a USB drive.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Random lockups happening at random times sounds like R(andom)AM... In all seriousness RAM > CPU > Storage and cabling > Power Supply Is the order I would try things in.

Memtest can miss errors on DIMMs though, nothing is 100% when dealing with computers.. That would still be my first course of action though.

[Totien]

memtest86.

[Darkdreamer]

OK I ran memtest86 and it came back with 0 errors.

[Totien]

I wouldn't accept those results just yet. You mentioned that your problems don't seem to have a trigger, and that it usually happens after you've been working on the machine for a while. Memtest86 can run multiple times in succession. Sometimes your memory can pass the first time, but after you let it run for an hour or so, you'll start seeing failures.

[Darkdreamer]

Yeah it only ran for about 30-40 minutes it usually takes a solid hour before the computer takes a shit.

I'll try running the test again once I'm able to block out more than an hour.

[Darkdreamer]

Alright so I let memtest86 run for about 4 hours. While each pass took considerably longer than the one before it, each test gave 0 errors.

[Sonomaa]

since it takes an hour it makes me wonder if its possibly a video card issue, do you have a unit you can test it with? it might be an overheating where the videocard is just trashing the systems function.
its unlikely its power supply and I assume you have a virus scanner installed to catch anything icky
in instances like this where its just unknown I usually clean the unit out and load it up one component at a time outside the case until it starts failing

[Darkdreamer]

I'm about to frankenstein this with the wife's pc which has similar parts. The psu is brand new and I've done a few virus scans and nothing coming from any of it.

[Darkdreamer]

Ok I swapped out the memory and the computer still locked up after an hour like before.

[Totien]

Have you tested the hard drive? Scanned for viruses?

[Darkdreamer]

After much testing and swapping out parts the problem has been found. The SSD had gone bad. I'm now on a normal hd and everything is fully functional. I will miss my 20 second start-ups.

[djzombie]

That sucks dude,. they're expensive to replace. I thought that was the big thing about solid state(aside from instant data access), no mechanical parts, no drive failure. How does a ssd go bad?

[Elizara]

I've never had a SSD..but yes they do fail. I did a search on it, you might wanna read this article from a couple years ago. If ZDnet is right, SSDs actually have the same failure rate as normal HDDs but for different reasons. Sometimes it's firmware, sometimes it's a chip going bad on you.

The trouble is SSDs tend to fail with no warning; regular hdds usually give you some warning signs before total meltdown.

[Darkdreamer]

Yeah I was expecting the failure to be more like a regular hard drive where if it goes to hell the whole damn thing will tend to just not work, not work consistently for an hour or so then fail and re-booting and repeating the process. I will greatly miss my SSD but I'll take consistently stability any day.