Hello, I currently have a Sony Vaio, win XP SP3, home ed version 2002, P4 3ghz 1.49gb RAM. I really need to know if my PC is dying. I was buring a dvd using IMGburn when my monitor suddenly turned black. IMGburn was still running. I was not running any other apps. As soon as I closed IMGburn my desktop reappeared. However all my windows were locked as well as the icons on my desktop. I had to access the icons from the START menu. I've never had this problem before. Every app I open freezes. I've had my PC for about 4 yrs. Can someone please tell me if its time to get a new PC? Thank you in advance. Hopefully my PC will be working enough so that I can reply to any replies.
Okay...First thing you have to do is run a spy-ware and virus scan, if nothings there good. Second, open up your PC and clean it. Use canned air to get the dust out of the heat sink, video card, and exhaust fans or what ever part that can accumulate dust and use a vacuum to suck up the dust. If this solves your problem excellent. But if this doesn't work, you might try to do a system restore with the disc(s) that came with the PC or Sony might have put a recovery partition on the hard drive. Remember to backup your data if you decide to restore. My PC is also from 2002 and it still runs strong and I also burn DVD's you just need to do a little maintenance its still a good PC.
Okay, I opened up my PC and dusted/vacuumed inside. It wasn't really that dusty but it seemed to have worked. Haven't experienced any problems since. Thanks again Bankai. I really appreciate your advice. Happy holidays.
The other thing that it maybe if it occurs again and yes make sure that you keep it clean. The other thing that you may need to watch for is your graphic card maybe dying or the Power supply may be loosing its full power capacity.
