Somewhat random freezing

[sharpshoota]

System specs:

p4 2.4 ghz
nvidia geforce4 ti4200 128mb
512mb pc2700 ddr333
Western Digital SE 80gb 7200 HD
ASUS P4PE motherboard

Alright im no computer genius by any means so take it easy on me. The problem is my computer will lock up at random times. the Keyboard and mouse will freeze, so I have to use the reset button. The thing is I know exactly when the computer is going to freeze. It kinda gives me a warning signal, a strange noise. Either its a fan, or the harddrive that makes the noise. I think it's the harddrive. Its like the noise you get when you turn the computer off. You hear the power and fans die down slowly. It's that noise, only smaller. It's not the whole computer making that noise. It's just this one fan,or the harddrive, whatever it is. After it makes that power down noise, it makes the power up noise. seconds later the computer locks up, everytime. No mouse, no keyboard, have to restart using the reset button. At precisely the same time I lose mouse and keyboard functions....the HDD light is solid. Not blinking anymore. Its frozen in the lit up state. this has been happening ever since i got my computer 2 years ago. I've just been to lazy to figure out what's wrong....somedays it will never freeze...others it will freeze after 15 minutes. I have noticed something common with all the freeze ups though. Everytime it freezes up, the computer is pretty much idle. Im not doing anything demanding of the computer's processor, ram, or graphics card. It will only freeze when im looking at a website, downloading something, or just talking to people on AIM, or if I just left the computer on. If I am playing a game like counter strike, it doesnt freeze, ever. It seems as though doing something that takes up the computers resources keeps it running. Ive also discovered that if i am listening to music on winamp, it prolongs the freeze up. or it wont freeze up at all. If i want my computer to stay on all day to download something, i just run a playlist on winamp. and it wont freeze. Sorry for such a long post, but I thought all that information was necessary. Any ideas? feel free to ask me questions if you need more info.

 

[sharpshoota]

OH yeah i almost forgot...Im not sure if this is related to my freezing problem or not. But when I built my computer, I was fairly new to it....so I had my friend help. He put in the processor for me because he said it was easy to ruin it If I messed up. On the contrary, He messed it up himself. My processor came with Thermal compound already on it. I think my friend said its called thermal tape. I was under the impression you needed thermal paste for the processor, but he assured me the thermal tape was sufficient. So he puts the processor in, and cant get it locked down properly so he takes it back out. Puts it back in, takes it back out. trying to adjust it so it will lock properly. Well he took it off like 3 of 4 times before he got it. We both noticed that some of the thermal tape had been stripped off. It looked like about half of the tape was gone, the metal was exposed. I asked him if that would be a problem, he said no, no it's fine. Is my freezing problem maybe due to the processor overheating or something? Any suggestions on what i should do. Should i get some thermal paste and apply it over the thermal tape? If thats the case im not really sure what im doing. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[Sui]

Sorry for such a long post

Its much better then the 'my computer freezes why?' posts we get. Although it could do with some breaks...

Is my freezing problem maybe due to the processor overheating or something? Any suggestions on what i should do. Should i get some thermal paste and apply it over the thermal tape?

Doubt its an overheating prob.... You can get a hardware monitor program to check for temp problems, just use a search engine for 'motherboard monitor'.
You can reapply thermal paste if you want, its probably due for it, as that stuff only lasts so long.

Your problem seems kinda strange to me, it doesn't seem to point to any known pattern that I'm currently aware of. Ok, sooo we need to either make the problem worse or visible some how. Do you have updated drivers for everything? how about bios? Is there anything that causes it to lock up? Has this problem been slowly getting worse?

 

[sharpshoota]

Doubt its an overheating prob.... You can get a hardware monitor program to check for temp problems, just use a search engine for 'motherboard monitor'.
You can reapply thermal paste if you want, its probably due for it, as that stuff only lasts so long.

Your problem seems kinda strange to me, it doesn't seem to point to any known pattern that I'm currently aware of. Ok, sooo we need to either make the problem worse or visible some how. Do you have updated drivers for everything? how about bios? Is there anything that causes it to lock up? Has this problem been slowly getting worse?

I have a motherboard monitor, plus my case has a cpu thermometer with a digital readout on the front. my system stays incredibly cool, so I think we can rule that out. I have updated drivers for everything. Nothing wrong with the bios. As far as I know nothing in particular makes it lock up, other than inactivity. If I dont have any programs running, it is inevitable it will lock up. It's just a matter of when. Sometimes it will go 8 hours inactive and not lock up. Other times it will go half an hour and lock up. If I run winamp and play music continuously, the computer will not lock up. Or if im gaming. There have been rare occasions where it locked up while winamp was running though. Im completely baffled here. I've never tried to get help because it's really not too much of a problem, I just make sure I leave winamp running if I want my computer to stay on for long periods of time. Guess I finally just got curious what it is causing it. any suggestions are appreciated....

 

[sharpshoota]

ANYBODY???

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

Some confusing problem is definetely riddled in to your pc. I really dont know what it could be given what you have described. Might as well start off by running some computer tests to see if they yeild anything. Try memtest first because memory is one of the key things responsible for system lockups, then try some cpu and hard drive tests i gues.

 

[Sui]

the bios is fine? Have you ever updated it? Does the event viewer log anything when it crashes?

For the event viewer
Control panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer

Intermittent lock up is one of the hardest problems to find because it takes so long to occur. The only thing you can do is isolate different things until the problem emurges, this meaning changing, or disabling different parts. I've battled that type of lockup for days before I finally found the problem.

 

[sharpshoota]

the bios is fine? Have you ever updated it? Does the event viewer log anything when it crashes?

For the event viewer
Control panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer

Intermittent lock up is one of the hardest problems to find because it takes so long to occur. The only thing you can do is isolate different things until the problem emurges, this meaning changing, or disabling different parts. I've battled that type of lockup for days before I finally found the problem.

I have updated the bios, its up to date. the event viewer does not log anything when it crashes.... i get no errors, just everything halts.