Need assistance, my computer gets freezed!!

[Freaks89]

just recently bumped into this problem on my pc, the computer gets freezed and i have to restart it and its so annoying


i thought it was the hard drive, a seagate barracuda 80gb IDE because it started to shutdown himself at random times, i replaced it whit a brand new seagate barracuda 160gb Sata hard drive and the problem seem to be solved but guess what? it keeps getting freezed!!

i still have the old hard drive pluged in, it is only for storage purposes (at this time its empty), could it be the problem??? do i need to unplug it and just get rid of that old piece of crap?? (i´m a cheap bastard )


my pc specs:

Pentium D 3.2ghz processor
1 Gb ddr2 533mhz ram
Intel D102gcc2 motherboard
160gb Seagate barracuda SATA hard drive
80gb Seagate barracuda IDE hard drive
IDE DVD-RAM LG
IDE CD-RW/DVD ROM Lite On
450W generic PSU
Ati Radeon x550 pci express 256mb

[JPMiller]

First try pulling the old hard drive and see if that stops your instability...
Then try replacing the power supply, and in the meantime ditch Norton altogether and get AVG or Avast

[BipolarBill]

Freezing is most often caused by software - not hardware.

Have you scanned for bugs? Try using this to do a cleanup:

Avira AntiVir Rescue System

Remember to use the spacebar to select English.

[Freaks89]

Originally Posted by JPMiller

First try pulling the old hard drive and see if that stops your instability...
Then try replacing the power supply, and in the meantime ditch Norton altogether and get AVG or Avast

i´ll try these 2 things, i have avira antivir and spybot search&destroy

[Freaks89]

Originally Posted by JPMiller

First try pulling the old hard drive and see if that stops your instability...
Then try replacing the power supply, and in the meantime ditch Norton altogether and get AVG or Avast

i´ll try these two things first

i have avira and spybot search&destroy

[Freaks89]

Originally Posted by JPMiller

First try pulling the old hard drive and see if that stops your instability...
Then try replacing the power supply, and in the meantime ditch Norton altogether and get AVG or Avast

i´ll try these two things first

i have avira and spybot search&destroy

[JPMiller]

Originally Posted by BipolarBill

Freezing is most often caused by software - not hardware.

Thats not always true at all
granted, hardware issues are more likely top cause shutdowns and blue screens than software, but freezing can be caused by a slew of hardware issues...
I just suggested the easiest, fastest troubleshooting options first
Once hes ruled those out then you move on to the more time consuming software options

[BipolarBill]

I'm not going to argue which is more likely, but I would recommend free solutions before spending hard-earned money.

I will say that, in my experience, software/drivers have been the cause of freezing about 70% of the time with excessive heat about 20% and failing hard drives less than 10%.

[Freaks89]

Originally Posted by JPMiller

Thats not always true at all
granted, hardware issues are more likely top cause shutdowns and blue screens than software, but freezing can be caused by a slew of hardware issues...
I just suggested the easiest, fastest troubleshooting options first
Once hes ruled those out then you move on to the more time consuming software options

i agree 100% whit you, first i tought it was caused by overheating and i dusted off my pc (i keep it clean always but just in case) i putted new heat sink silicone on the processor heat sink but it kept freezing


what i was thinking is that this problem began when i installed the video card, i just remembered that today in the morning...

could the video card be consuming too much power (its a generic psu) and thats the cause of the freezing issue?? i know its not that big video card but since the psu its generic i don´t know if it can supply the power that the video card needs

[Freaks89]

Originally Posted by BipolarBill

I'm not going to argue which is more likely, but I would recommend free solutions before spending hard-earned money.

I will say that, in my experience, software/drivers have been the cause of freezing about 70% of the time with excessive heat about 20% and failing hard drives less than 10%.

i´m so confused.... i run a complete virus, malware, adware, spyware scan every week, i updated every single driver of my pc but the problem persists...