Computer randomly freezes at times.

[NicktheQuik]

Alright it went for a little over 5 hours, no errors.

And I'm also hearing a ticking or clicking sound from my computer. But I don't know where specifically it's coming from. It's not frequent, but once in a while I'll here a click.

 

[Ste]

At least we know the memory is ok.

Take the side cover off and try to figure out where the clicking is coming from.

If its from the hard drive then we know its that, make sure all important data is backed up.

 

[NicktheQuik]

I could try, but it doesn't really happen enough for me to sit here and listen for where it's coming from.

It also seems like sometimes it's just fire fox that's the problem. Ever since it's started I've had problems with firefox freezing, or sometimes being a lot slower then usual. Sometimes I'll be doing something with the browser and my whole computer will just freeze.

 

[Ste]

Try other browsers.

Next step other than that is to get a DMM and check the RAILS on the power supply.

 

[NicktheQuik]

No clue what that means. Do you mean one of those things with the red and black connectors, to see if it's putting out enough power?

 

[Ste]

Yes.

Can find one at radio shack or most electronic stores

 

[NicktheQuik]

Alright kind of a weird thing happened. I did an avast virus scan and like usual it seems like whenever I leave my computer for 10+ minutes or so, it freezes. I try to open something on the task bar, the font turns bold and everything freezes.

So I restarted, and instead of Windows loading up, it said there was something wrong with a file. I don't remember exactly which but it was something to do with the system folder I think, and it told me to use the Windows XP cd to do a repair.

I load the cd and try to do a repair and it asks me for the administrators password, and for some reason it's not accepting what it should be. So after not knowing what to do, I restart, and then Windows loads as if nothing happened... It does a chkdsk test for my main drive, does the 3 stages, restarts and now I'm here.

My dad says he doesn't think it sounds like a power supply problem. He says it might be the processor. Is there any test/program I can try to see if that's it?

 

[kmote]

Sounds like a HDD problem to me (clicking sound, corrupt files etc) there is also a software issue somewhere but this is pretty much for sure because memtest was able to run for a good length of time. If you have not done so already, back up your files.

 

[NicktheQuik]

The clicking, I think might have actually been my cat... Yea, it's kinda hard to explain, but I'm pretty sure it was her.

But anyways, if I didn't solve the problem by tomorrow, my plan is currently to backup my hard drive on the new one I'm getting for christmas, and just reformat to see if that fixes it.