Computer keeps freezing up

clueless_emilyclueless_emily
edited February 2006 in Hardware
I really hope someone can help me.

Like the title says, my computer keeps freezing up for no apparent reason. It's happening every single day - sometimes it'll freeze and I have to pull out my Belkin wireless card, then a blue screen flashes up for about a second (not long enough to read it, dammit) and then the computer reboots itself. Other times it'll just freeze altogether and I'll have to unplug the power source and pull out the battery for a moment to get it to reboot. It always reboots itself after it freezes.

I've run AVG, ewido security suite, Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy and nothing's come up so I don't think it's a spyware/adware problem.

My computer is a compaq presario 2500 laptop. It's two years old but I just got a new harddrive for it in October so I can't believe it's doing this to me! It's been going on for a few weeks and it's driving me absolutely insane! I just can't get anything done. I always keep it elevated so I don't think it can be overheating.

Huge thanks in advance to anyone who can help me.

Comments

  • reelbigfishreelbigfish Boston, MA Member
    edited February 2006
    when it does get a blue screen see if you can hit the pause/break key. That will pause the screen so you can read the BSOD error. That might help in isolating the problem.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited February 2006
    Also, from the desktop you can do the following:

    Right click on My Computer

    Left click on Properties

    Left click on the tab titled "Advanced"

    Left Click on the "Settings" button under "Startup and Recovery"

    Uncheck "Automatically Restart" under "System Failure"

    This will leave your BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) up until you manually reset your computer's power.

    Make sure you write down the last line of the stop error code close to the bottom of the screen then come back here and tell us what it is.
  • clueless_emilyclueless_emily
    edited February 2006
    Thanks, jradmin!

    Okay, I did what you suggested and this is what I got (it froze again about ten minutes ago) - I just wrote down everything because I didn't know what you needed:

    PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

    0X00000050 0XFAF6D000 0X00000001 0XFA892C92 0X00000000

    ADDRESS FAF892C92

    BASE AT FA888000

    DATESTAMP 3daf2301

    I hope that makes sense to someone!
  • clueless_emilyclueless_emily
    edited February 2006
    It happened again, this time with a different message:

    MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION

    0X000000090 (0X00000000 0X8054D370 0XA2000000 0X84010400)
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited February 2006
    Intermiten BSOD's are are good sign something may be wrong with your RAM. Download a copy of MEMTEST to CD (or floppy if you have it) then let your computer boot up to it and run.
  • clueless_emilyclueless_emily
    edited February 2006
    Thanks, jradmin.

    Sorry if I'm being a pain but how do I do that?! I haven't got a floppy drive on my laptop but I've just googled MEMTEST and saved it to CD but I don't understand how to get it to work!
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I believe that if you go to our download section there are instructions.
    Basically you are creating a bootable CD, it is an image of the files.
    You then need for your machine to boot to the CD.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited February 2006
    Your doing fine Emily. Just head to the Download section and follow those instructions. Just let us know the results or if your having problems beyond that.

    :Rocker: :thumbsup:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2006
    A link to Memtest-86, hope that helps. :)
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