Help! My System Keeps Freezing

I won't be very helpful, unfortunately. This is not exactly my area of expertise. I do have two suggestions, however.

Try booting in safe mode and find out what softwares are being loaded during start up. You might find something there that you don't need. If your OS is WinXP, type msconfig in the Run dialog box (in the Start Menu). You'll get a list of software that is loaded during start up.

Next suggestion, if this doesn't help and if nobody else offers other solution, is to bring your unit to the service center.

Good luck.

I suspect, so many "junks, scraps, remnants, fragments, etc." from updates, install/uninstall of software/applications that were not clean-up in the process, and also the span of time using your machine contributed to this type of problem, aside from problems arising from so many "start-up" applications opening during boot-up.

After boot-up, try system reconditioning using Norton SystemWorks (any version from 2002 to the the latest available you can find) run direct from CD (no installation required). Start with WinDoctor, then DiskDoctor (reboot needed) and then CleanUp.

If all the efforts fail, I'm with Vulcan's second suggestion.

Good Luck.

Make sure that you have all your drivers etc on floppy of CD, make sure they are at the latest and greatest level.

Format and partition your hard disk and re-install your OS.

If that does not do it, then most probably you have a hardware problem, often on older PCs the power supply is either too small, or has fan problems, some you can fix some not....replace or repair.

Take out all plug in boards that you do not need to power up and see if that helps.....

If it still freezes, take it to a dealer, or just buy a new main board, there is probably little difference in the cost!!

your system probably has numerous application installed , you did not mention memory specs , during booting some files clash with system software , number of applications start in back yard , try deframenting disk , uninstall some application that run after booting (third party only) , still if no results , there is nothing you can do but to format & repartition ,install fresh os and so on, it is quiet possible to see for viruses also. if still no solution , then go for hardware check if you can , watch for SMPS specs , cards installed , remove processor carefully , remove fan mounting , heat sink , cpu ,ram , if your processor is Single Edge Connector type , just do not attempt to any thing but to reattach , if it is flat pin one clean the upper surface apply heat sink jelly than replace heat sink and fan, it will solve the problem because pentiums were designed to withstand temperature cutoffs

Yes, it does sound as though an app is starting in the background and stopping the system. Are there any messages that appear? I would definately get into your start menu and make sure only the apps you need running when you boot are going to. Having all sorts of apps starting just slows the boot and can cause conflicts.

Did this problem just seem to start up from nowhere or did you just install a new application?

One thing to do is to set up a user account for yourself that does not have administrator priveledges. That way if you are surfing the web and some app trys to install something in the background you won't have install rights and this will be stopped.

You also might want to delete a lot of the .tmp files that may be stacking up.

Beyond that getting into the setup and looking for problems is the next step.

Good luck.

Next time you get completely booted-up, better backup your hard drive - including registry. It is very posible that the hard drive is going bad, and all the other things you are doing just supply the hard drive the time to come up to temperature/speed.

I think most people involved in this discussion have good ideas but in order to choose the best course of action you need to be more specific as to what actually happens. Also your history with the machine is important, have you recently installed software? Do you use anti-virus software? When was the last time your system worked properly? What do you mean by "boot your system illegally"? Does the system work in "Safe Mode" (assuming Windows OS)? What version of which OS are you using?

Honestly I think that the best suggestion (if you don't have any data you need to recover) is to erase and reload, this always gives me a much better feeling about a system that has been misbehaving, if you still have a problem then you know it's hardware.