Desktop having major freezing problems.

[Amarok]

2 weeks ago I came home to the PC 100% locked up at the desktop, keyboard and mouse would not respond and I had to hold the power button to reset it. In between then and now it did this one more time. As of yesterday it began doing it every time I start my PC. It will boot fine then lock up after being on the desktop for 10 seconds to 10 minutes. Strangely enough in between doing the things I list below it managed to work fine for about 2 hours and then froze again, so the freezing seems very random.

Things I have tried so far:

1. Swapped out the HDD and it still froze. I have also booted up the desktop with NO HDD in it and it even locked up while in the BIOS. I assume this rules out a software problem causing the lock ups.

2. Swapped out the ram with 3 different sticks, still locked up.

3. Tried a different video card, still locked up.

4. Reseated the CPU (even though it was running at around 38c idle and 50c under load) with new grease, still locked up while have good temps.

So I think I've ruled out the HDD, video card, RAM and CPU overheating. That would leave faulty CPU, faulty mobo or faulty PSU as the problems.

I am not really sure what to try as I don't have an extra CPU, mobo or PSU to try and I don't really want to buy all 3 and hope it fixes the problem. Can any of these 3 cause the locking up I described?

Rosewill RP500-2 500W ATX12V v2.01 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz Socket AM2
EVGA 320-P2-N815-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB
ASUS M2N-E AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium

If anyone has any ideas as to what may be causing this I would appreciate it thanks!

[Kohan]

The make of the hardware doesn't matter. Any motherboard, any CPU, and any PSU can cause problems if they're broken.

If you don't want to buy all three things, the cheapest thing to get will probably some dinky motherboard. You can get one open box somewhere and -- if you determine that's the problem -- try returning it by saying it doesn't work, then buy a better motherboard.

If you don't want to fool with that option, buy a better motherboard period. As long as it will support whatever processor you decide to upgrade to if you have to build a new machine, it won't be wasted money.

[Kryssan]

Eww, Rosewill PSU. I'm tempted to go that direction, but....







Before you go spending money, are you one of those people that likes to cram your desktop full of stuff and load a lot of programs at startup? Can't tell you how often I see this causing the problems you describe. Computer tries to do too much at startup, some program causes an access violation on load, and Windows being Windows decides it'd rather crash than unload the bad program. If you fall into this situation, try cleaning up your desktop and turning off all your programs, and if that works, turn them back on one by one. Even if you don't necessarily think you fall into this, have you tried loading your computer in safe mode and seeing if it crashes then? If you installed some drivers recently they could be the culprits.

[Amarok]

Before you go spending money, are you one of those people that likes to cram your desktop full of stuff and load a lot of programs at startup? Can't tell you how often I see this causing the problems you describe. Computer tries to do too much at startup, some program causes an access violation on load, and Windows being Windows decides it'd rather crash than unload the bad program. If you fall into this situation, try cleaning up your desktop and turning off all your programs, and if that works, turn them back on one by one. Even if you don't necessarily think you fall into this, have you tried loading your computer in safe mode and seeing if it crashes then? If you installed some drivers recently they could be the culprits.

Nah I don't have any unnecessary start up programs. It DOES lock up in safe mode and it even locks up in the BIOS with NO HDDs even connected to the computer, which is why I think I can rule out software/driver problems.

[Kohan]

Before you go spending money, are you one of those people that likes to cram your desktop full of stuff and load a lot of programs at startup?

Considering all the hardware swaps they've done, this won't apply to their situation.