Freezing PC

[Mike Seddon]

Calling the tech experts!

My PC has frozen twice today. The screen just locked. I had to unplug the power supply to restart. Even the soft reboot button did not work.

Is there anything I can check to see why this happened?

The only major change to software recently is I have removed Norton and installed McAfee.

Also, I did get two blue screens during that very hot day we had last week.

I wonder if the hard drive is on the way out?

Any advice very much appreciated.

Ta

Mike

[Indizine]

I went through that phase some several weeks back. It resolved itself and never did it again and I don't know what caused it either but it's run OK ever since!

[Mike Seddon]

Thanks. I was hoping to persuade myself to buy another one

[Barry]

Hi Ya

have you checked your fans are all working and clean from dust? An overheat can cause both blue screens and crashed as the computer becomes unstable when operating outside its design temperatures.

Ta

Baz

[HuggyBear]

If your computer is just stopping dead ie cursor stops moving - this can suggest that the hard drive is on its way out.. would reccomend you back up your critical data asap...

If it's a new computer your after Mike, ping me a PM... will be happy to sort you out with a highly competitive quotation for an excellent specification...

[Barry]

Just out of interest Mike, why do you use software such as Norton and McAfee?

Personally I would touch them with a barge pole. If you had said your comp was running slow and kept jittering, I would say that those bits of software where probably to blame or at least the way they were setup more specifically.

That saying, if your computer is upto spec the over heating could at a very slim chance be being caused by overscanning of your virus software, some providers have default settings that are far higher than the normal user needs - ie scan on save, move, create, scan on startup.

Does your HD now run all the time like crazy when you start?

Ta

Baz

[Mike Seddon]

If your computer is just stopping dead ie cursor stops moving - this can suggest that the hard drive is on its way out.. would reccomend you back up your critical data asap...

If it's a new computer your after Mike, ping me a PM... will be happy to sort you out with a highly competitive quotation for an excellent specification...

All my critical data is backed up thanks.

It's the pain of building a new PC with all the various bits of software that I use (ie: finding the licence keys again etc) that is the hardest part.

[Mike Seddon]

or at least the way they were setup more specifically.

How would you advise I set up McAfee?

[gogul2k]

Could (maybe) be the result of overheating.

Not read enough of this post to determine if my advice will be useful, though I would run CHKDSK.

Post the results.

[cjd]

Check that the heatsink on your CPU is not fluffed up and that your air filter isn't clogged.
(get your hoover in there - but put your finger on the fan to stop it spinning with the suction.)

Norton is a pig to uninstall and it may be a red herring but I'd also remove McAffey which I also dislike. When you've done that get hold of crap cleaner from www ccleaner com and run it. Then install AVG - www avgfree com

That'll clean up your register but if the problem persists it's trial and error swopping hardware to diagnose it