PC freezing - what component is failing?

[ferret]

Hi all,

My PC is about 2 1/2 years old and in recent months has started failing to boot up or freezing just during mouse movement.

Generally, opening up and reseating cpu, ram, misc leads etc seems to get it going again but problem is becoming more frequent.

I guess some item of hardware is on its way out, but any suggestion what it might be before I spend too much on new components that don't fix the problem?

Current hardware is:
Epox EP-8K7A M/B
Athlon 1400
2 x 128 MB no name RAM
IBM Deskstar 7200rpm 40 GB HD
Matrox G550 video
running with Windows 98SE

Thanks!

[sfw1960]

run memtest

[Dj-Icer]

there one or two things that could possibly make things freezes- either your processor got hotter or the ram problem. What i normally do, take it out, polish the copper grill (connector) and slot it back again.

Could also be the overclocking issue. If you're not sure what to do for overclocking, contact your computer hardware technician.

[ferret]

Ok,

Ran memtest for 1/2 hour (3000 cycles, 6300% coverage) and no errors. Guess the ram is ok.

Don't see that it could be an over heating problem. The PC is cold when it sometime won't boot and it also sometimes freezes soon after boot, before it has had time to get over hot.

I'm not overclocking at all.

One other thing - sometimes when it freezes I think I notice a faint high pitched whine start. I'm not certain, but this might be coming from the hard drive.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Dj-Icer]

I also hate when my computer all of a sudden runs slow or turn a little freezes. What i do is I would go for scandisk or analyze (for XP) and defrag my hdd afterwards.

At least 1 or twice a month. Scan disk and then defrag in order.

What do you make of your PC? For game or entirely for work?

[ferret]

PC is mostly for web browsing and gaming.

I will try scandisk - haven't run this for quite some time.
Also haven't defragged for a while - because it takes hours and hours and hours and hours .......

[Mead]

It could be your harddrive, not sure which batch yours came out of but i know there a couple years ago ibm deskstars had some bad batches. I had to replace 5 personally in my office, thankfully most were under warranty still.

[ferret]

Hope it isn't the hard disk.

Loading everything onto a new HD would be a pain and I don't have disks for the internet access software installed on the PC.

[Dj-Icer]

Don't run scan disk or defrag too often. It could damage your HDD.

If you're a student and have class in the afternoon, before you go out of the hourse, have your HDD scan and have somebody else in your house to click YES for defrag

If you're working man, then do the same thing. Dating for 3 hours..umm should be enough for defrag to finish the whole of it J/k

[wju425]

If you have any cards plugged in the slots pull 'em out but not your video card (if any) and run your system there. Put them back in one by one and test to see if you snagged 'em. Most of the times it's the modem or nic card.

\o/ Billy