Windows xp home locks up

[Mark]

Windows XP home edition,
been working fine for about a year.

Haven't installed any software recently or added any hardware.
Current Norton AV flags system as being virus free.

Every so often (about 15 minutes, but it does vary)
the system just locks up. Mouse pointer sits there, system doesn't respond.
ctrl-alt-del doesn't work.

have to re-boot system.

I have noticed that every few minutes, the primary hard drive kicks in
- don't know if this is relevant or not.

Any ideas out there?

oh, I have added a couple of cooling fans recently, they suck air in from
the front over the hard drives - possible overload on system psu?

cheers

Mark

GA7VAXP
Athlon 2800+
1Gb PC2700 RAM
Hercules Radeon 9700 Pro
2x WD 80Gb caviar hd's
creative cd rw
creative cd rom

 

[Dale]

I also had same problem and it was a memory card that was
going bad (RAM). I ran a program that is shareware
called PC Burn (or similiar), where the memory showed bad.
I had 2 memory sticks in PC, so if you can take one out
and see if it happens and if it does not, then swap them
and I will bet you that your system will freeze.
Most cases it is not the hard drive.

 

[Mark]

cheers for the reply dale.

I'll give it a try and let you know

mark

 

[Alex Nichol]

Windows XP home edition,
been working fine for about a year.

Haven't installed any software recently or added any hardware.
Current Norton AV flags system as being virus free.

Every so often (about 15 minutes, but it does vary)
the system just locks up. Mouse pointer sits there, system doesn't respond.
ctrl-alt-del doesn't work.

have to re-boot system.

often a result of the mouse driver and the video driver arguing over
which controls the pointer. It is easy to check on - Control Panel -
Display - Settings, Click Advanced, and on the Troubleshoot page reduce
the acceleration slider one notch or two. If one does it, there is
negligible loss of performance: if two are needed look for updated video
drivers from the maker's site. Might have arisen if you allowed Windows
Update to install a 'new' driver for it - get drivers, video ones
especially, only from the maker's site