locking up issues

Hi, I have issues with my computer locking up or shutting off randomly, and I was told to come here. When in screen saver mode or sleep mode, the computer from time to time will lock up, causing me to have to manually shut it off to get it working again. This computer is also painfully slow, despite having 1 gb of ram.
Can someone help?

computer Specs:
Dell Dimension 8400
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Pentium 4 3.40 GHz
1 GB of Ram

Thanks for the help!

 

Hi TT,

Freezing can be a sign of overheating. Has the case been opened and the dust cleaned out? A Dell 8400 may have a plastic cowl over the CPU heatsink, unclip the cowl and check for dust in the fins of the heatsink. Get someone that has done it before to help you if you are not sure.

Run the machine with the case open and check that all the fans are spinning freely.

Go to the Downloads section at Dell Support
www.dell.com/support
use the system of finding and inputting the Service Tag. That will lead you to the drivers for it. Start by updating the chipset drivers, then the graphics, then the audio, then the other major drivers.

Matt

 

Sorry it took so long to reply. I cleaned the computer out, and looked for drivers on the website. However, now I can't get to the internet from that computer. My guess would be that I do indeed have a virus.

 

Yes, It is. I was originally directed to the hardware forum with this problem.