Can you solve this random hang up?

[booyakasha]

I have a random freezing problem. Whenever I turn the computer off for hours (like overnight) and I try to start it, it freezes either a) while windows is booting up b) on the XP account screen or c) within minutes of reaching my desktop. This can happen 5 times in a row and I have to force restart many times before it will run without freezing. Once running, it will run for hours and won't freeze again.

Sometimes instead of freezing, I get a blue screen of death telling me that newly installed drivers are causing an instability and it performs a physical memory dump. WTF??!!

Is my HD shot? Its like 4-5 years old. I just bought an external drive and I was planning to use something to dupe my current drive and boot from the new drive to see if it still hangs. Could this be caused by overheating? I don't have a case fan. Or could it really be a driver issue? I am probably going to reformat my HD and see if it still hangs.

Am I going in the right direction? WTF IS GOING ON???!!!

Thanks!

 

[FadingTheory]

I dont see how it could be a hard drive problem...

 

[hu_xu]

Does it tell you what drivers are causing the problem?

Did you check for spyware and etc? I have seen this problem with one of my buddies and it was later found out to be caused by a spyware program conflicting with other processes during startup. Even deleting the spyware changed nothing and eventually he just reformatted and it went away.

Or do you have Zone Alarm installed on your PC? Zone Alarm (the free one) sometimes has a startup conflict if you installed it BEFORE you installed SP2. I was getting freezes all the time during startup. The only way I found to get around it with Zone Alarm set to startup when Windows startups is to actually reformat install SP2 first and then install Zone Alarm. But you can also disable Zone Alarm to startup and start it up manually but it got annoying for me. So if you have Zone Alarm that might be it.

I agree with the other poster nothing indicates that it is HD problem. even if you think it is just download a HD diagnostic tool at your HD's manufacturers website and test it.

It would be easier if you can identify what drivers are causing this but it doesn't sound like Windows tell you. Just in case, just reinstall all video and audio drivers and see if it still happens.

 

[booyakasha]

Thanks man. I dont have zonealarm so thats not the problem. I think i am just going to reformat the HD because so much crap has built up over the years. I keep my comp clean of spyware etc but like you said, even deleting the spyware might not solve the problem. Thanks again!

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Dont help this guy, he is making a mess flaming in the off topic forum.