PC Freezes Unexpectedly

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Taiidan

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This is a custom build PC. Here are my hardware specs -
- Windows XP Professional, SP 3
- CoolerMaster Centurion Case
- Intel E8400 Wolfdale @ 3.00GHz
- 4 (3.25 recognized by Windows) Mushkin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM (4x1GB Modules)
- Asus P5N32-e SLi Plus MoBo
- Western Digital Cavair 160GB 7200rpm HD
- Rosewill Turbo Series 550w PS (SLi ready)
- Foxconn 7900GS (560MHz)
- Asus 18x DVD burner
- Sound Blaster Audigy sound card.

Behavior -
The PC will freeze at two different times. 1, while playing World of Warcraft. 2, sometime after it has killed the video output due to inactivity. Regarding the second case, I have disabled hibernation and set it to never turn off hard disks, and never go to standby, so the computer is still on, it has just killed the video output. Usually this happens overnight, occasionally I will wake up to the Windows error *ding*. When I try to use the computer next, I can see that all the lights are on on the case, but when I move the mouse nothing happens. This happens almost every night, at least every other night. As for the first case, it only freezes when playing World of Warcraft. Other games and applications work fine. Sometimes it freezes 5min after starting the game, sometimes it waits till an hour and a half. These cases are equally rare, usually it goes for around 30-40 minutes. Also, this is not a "slow-down-then-freeze". Everything will be working fine, then suddenly the image will freeze and the sound will stop. It is instantaneous.

I have run TrendMicro Housecall and AVG virus scans, run adware/spyware scans with Adaware and Spybot S&D, I have run system scans with PC Pitstop (and updated my video driver as a result), I have run CCleaner to clean up the registry. I have also reseated the video card and the sound card, and intend to replace the stock heatsink on the processor, at which time I will reseat that as well. I also uninstalled uTorrent and replaced it with Vuze, as I heard that it might cause this behavior.

These freezes were more frequent before I did all of this, occasionally it would freeze while I was on the desktop, but that hasn't happened for a while.

I apologize for the long post, but I have been dealing with this for a couple months now, and I'm kinda at wits end. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One thing I forgot to add - this does not generate an error in the system logs, at least not so far as I can tell. I have gotten BSOD a couple times though, which does.
 
Just a few quick things to try:

Reinstall WoW.
Try to use your video card at a lower setting and see if you still get freezing issues.
Replace your video card w/ a friends just to see if the problem persists.
Ensure that the fan is running correctly on the video card.
See if you have any other applications that are trying to run when the computer is inactive - if you have Vista it will automatically do things like disk defrag and what not when the computer is idle, perhaps that is something that trys to run when your computer is idle and it is freezing your computer.

I know these are simple steps to follow that you may or may not have already tried, but sometimes the simplest methods are the best at first.

Oh and update your video drive w/ the latest update from the website.
 
Thanks for the advice. I did update the video driver, and I reinstalled WoW 2 or 3 times when I first started having the problem. I do, however, have another video card almost identical to whats in it, so I replaced the current one with that one. I dunno why it didn't occur to me to do it earlier. Hopefully this will work, but I'll just have to wait and see if it freezes again. If it does, I will lower the settings and see if that helps.
 
I replaced the video card and left it alone for 22 hours or so, and when I came back it had frozen. However, shortly after I replaced the card I got BSOD, and the corresponding critical error in the system log indicated some problem with Microsoft SQL Server. So, I've disabled that from starting on system startup (So it will stay off, its just there waiting for the day when I decide to sit down and learn ASP.Net). Maybe it will help, but I may be way off on that hope. I will also reduce the video card settings and monitor the temp.

Thanks for all the help. Someone suggested that I update the BIOS, and that seems to have fixed it. I had updated the bios before, but just enough to support the Wolfdale chip. Now its at the latest version, and I haven't had any other problems. *crosses fingers*
 
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