Curious computer freezing issue

FunkyWaltDogg

For the past few months my computer has been freezing up fairly frequently, once or twice a day usually. It generally happens a few minutes after I boot it up, but I've had a few freezes after it's been on for hours. The odd thing is that it rarely happens while I'm in the middle of something (playing a game for instance) so it's hardly an inconvenience at all. The question is mostly academic as I hope to replace it within a few months, and it's a Gateway with an extremely screwed up internal layout so I won't really be able to salvage any of the parts with the possible exception of the hard drive.

What could it be?

thej3w

It is most likely the hard drive. I have had a PC do that before, it would usually lock up a bit after startup but not always. I can't think of any disk checking tools off hand, but if you google around you might be able to find one. I think there was one called disk lite? Maybe. I don't remember, but if that isn't it, it might be heat related. Do you have any software that shows the temp? You might be able to check in the bios as well.

Also, the bios might have a hard drive checking option as well.

FunkyWaltDogg

I will look into checking the hard drive. Thanks!