Unexplained Computer Crashes

Flay

I’ve been having some frustrating issues with my computer lately, the problems being it frequently crashing shortly after booting. The crash can occur in one of several ways:

• Simply freezing, not responding to any input
• Blue screen of death
• A sudden unprompted reset

In the weirdest occurrences, the computer doesn’t freeze at all, but instead begins to operate extremely slowly. If there was sound playing, it now stutters and plays at around a twentieth of its original speed, and pixellation and graphical tearing begins to appear on screen. The crashes generally occur a few minutes after the computer has started up, but often they occur while it is starting up, or sometimes even thirty or forty minutes after startup. But after this period, it’s generally safe to assume that the computer won’t crash at all.

Sometimes after crashing, the computer won’t boot at all. In order to fix this, I need to jiggle around the small ‘pwrbn’ and ‘reset’ cables that lead from the computer box itself to the motherboard. It may be that these cables are the problem, but I wouldn’t have thought they’d be able to cause a blue screen.

This has been happening for about a week now, and I haven’t figured out how to solve the problem. Can anyone suggest a way to fix this?

Skoal Cat

Does it happen after any particular thing you've done?
Does it happen shortly after powering up, or after the computer has been on for awhile?
When was the last time you cleaned the vents/fans?

Flay

It always happens soon (anywhere from 30 seconds to 15 minutes, and longer on rare occaisons) after booting up, but no particular thing seems to set it off.

I cleaned the computer out a few months ago, but after checking my core temp it seems the CPU is idling around 50 degrees (celsius), but the GPU (an 8800 GT) is idling around 90 degrees, and I've seen it get up to 105. I've never given the GPU a good clean, so that's the first thing I'm going to do.


By the way, computer specs:

Windows 7 64 Bit
ASUS p5p41tle Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor (3.4GHz)
GeForce 8800 GT
4GB Kingston RAM (don't remember the specific model)

Spudge

Does your event log show anything on the verge of failing?

When it BSODs, can you read the stop code? If so, post plz

Having to jiggle the cables may lead to a power issue - possibly a puking/bulging capacitor or two on the motherboard

Effef

My gut says power supply, but it could also be failing memory or a bad cap.

The power cable thing is likely a coincidence, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely. I've had weirder issues arise in the past.

mts

slightly related but is there an event manager type thing on XP. We have a computer with freezing crashes connected to a piece of equipment.

Tofystedeth

Right-click on My Computer -> Manage.
Then open up the Event Viewer.
Hardware stuff should usually show up under the System category.