Hi everyone,
I have a 2 year old PC that I built myself. I can’t seem to figure out why it keeps freezing. Here is what I have noticed:
1. The system freezes randomly. (example: sometimes it freezes 10 minutes after startup and sometimes it freezes after several days of being on)
2. When I run Ubuntu and BackTrack2 from a LiveCD the system does not freeze at all. I have tested this up to 3 days without a lockup.
3. Vista was installed recently with all updates downloaded and virus scans/spyware and malware checks daily.
I’m not sure what troubleshooting steps can be done to solve this issue. I am a fairly technically savvy person so advanced troubleshooting tips are welcomed. I also want to mention that I do not want to buy a new computer or switch to Mac or get flamed or anything. Only constructive answers are welcome here. Thanks for all of your help!
What size of hard drive do you have and it is a Seagate is I have run into Numerous defective seagate hard drive recently that seem to suffer from a problem that OCCURS freezing at random. The defect causes the system to freeze for extended periods of times while the drive performs some unknown operation and it makes it seems like the OS is freezing but it is actually the hard drive that is freezing. The drives appear to work perfectly normal for extended periods of time then they will freeze at random. From what you Described that it does not freeze when you are booted from not an OS that is using the hard drive this is a good Possibility of what is going on.
Plz specify your system configurations. Since you are saying that your system is very old it might not meet with minimum requirements of vista. You should have at least 2gb ddr2 ram and 2ghz processor with speed. I too faced the same problem with vista coz my system configurations are very low to meet the requirement of vista but itz really cool with windows 7 If you have 1gb ram i recommend you the windows 7 or if you want to continue with vista then install atleast 2gb ram.
Have you tried testing memory to see if you have any bad sticks? If they are flaky, they can cause random freezes. It’s possible that Ubuntu never used the total amount of memory. Go to http://www. memtest. org / and download the self-bootable. iso and make a CD-R. Boot from the CD-R and test your memory. If you get errors, then move around the sticks and see if the addresses change. If the addresses change, then it’s the memory sticks. If not, it’s the motherboard. Otherwise, you may have to obtain some system diagnostics to test the other hardware. It’s therefore possible that you need to see if your drivers for your hardware are up to date in Vista. Updating via windows update is fine for the critical updates, but if you have old drivers you may have problems.