my computer has been a bit munted lately, ever since the weekend, its been blue-screening and freezing on me about 10 times a day. im not doing anything wrong, ill just be talking on msn, or doing stuff on the net, or playing games, or even just looking through my pictures, and suddenly itll either freeze or blue screen. ive got bit defender total security, did a full system scan yesterday and it picked up nothing, also scanned on mcaffee and that didnt pick up anything either. its really annoying have to constantly restart, was wondering if anyone could help with whats wrong with it?
My first guess would be bad RAM. You might start selectively removing/replacing modules to see if you can isolate it.
I agree with dailun. This will often happen when you have a bad memory stick (RAM). Go to the following site and run a program called Memtest. http://www.memtest86.com/download.html You'll need to download the program and boot your computer with it (CD or USB). It will test the memory in your computer and make sure that it's working properly. If you receive any errors, then you'll need to replace the bad stick(s).
i thought id just add to one of the problems, sometimes the comp gets stuck on the welcome loading screen and i have to restart it from there too. i downloaded that memory test and burnt the image to a cd, loaded windows with it in but it just did the same old black screen with the flash line up the top like anytime i accidently have a cd or usb in there. so i left it for a while then restarted it without the cd. but it did something funny instead, split my screen up into 4 different sections, like 4 monitors all in the one. when i got into windows though i just had to change the desktop resolution and it was back to normal. i have no idea if i still have the ram problem or not though. i wouldnt think anything has changed just from what happened.
ignore some of the last post... i got memory test to run. these were the stats it showed me.. L1 cache: 32k / 15262 MB L2 cache: 4096k / 8463 MB Memory: 2046m / 3249 MB and it had no errors. should i try reinstalling xp?
Since your RAM appears to be fine, the next item to check is your Hard Drive. You can perform a disk check by opening "My Computer" and right clicking on your C: drive and choosing properties. Go to the Tools tab of the window that pops up and then click on Check Now under "Error-checking". Make sure both boxes are checked and then click start. You'll then need to reboot your computer for the check to occur. The scan will take some time, but it will likely fix any corrupted sectors. If no corrupted sectors are found, then your drive is likely okay. If corrupted sectors are found, then the fix will probably solve your current problem, but it likely means that your hard drive is dying and you should consider buying a new one.
