computer just....crashing

For a while now, my computer has been crashing. The processess that are running/not running during the crashes vary greatly. In fact, I do not see any consistencies between any of the crashes. The only things consistent are the symptoms, computer freezes COMPLETELY. The mouse doesn't move and the End Task function is completely gone. The computer is unresponsive to anything short of a hard reset. Because there aren't any consistencies in the software I'm running the during the crashes, I thought that it might be a hardware problem. Is it the harddrive? The motherboard? Is it a corruption in a windows program? Is it a virus? What is it? I'm running on win2k with about 800 megs left on HD out of a possible 16 gigs (2 8 gigs HDs on a RAID).

 

I suspect RAM. Get Docmem from www.simmtester.com and run it.

 

When was the last time the computer was opened up and all the dustbunnies and the like blown out.

Crashing, I would say the cpu is starting to overheat and as for the lockups, the video maybe overheating also.
And as it is the start of warmer weather, lots of folks will have this happen.

 

Hi.

I think the best course of action with something like that is to open up the computer and unplug and replug every thing in it. Take it slow and be sure everything is seated properly, cards, memory, power plugs, cables, etc. That might not cure the problem but that is the first thing to do.