Pc Keeps Freezing - Help Please! Xd will try to post as much info as possible

[Dagoth Nereviar 0]

I've got the typical problem of my PC freezing up, and me not being able to do anything but turn it off using the power button. There seems to be no link between the freezing, except it always happen when i play Guild Wars. but it also happens when I'm not playing it. One thing I have noticed is that when it's frozen, the "loading light" on the front of my pc is always on, not flickering, but fully on. So i'm guessing my PC's doing too much work and freezes.

Here's a link to the DxDiag information

My setup (as I know it) is:

Processer: Intel Pentium 4 (~3Ghz I think xD)Gfx Card: NVidia GeForce FX 5200
Sound Card: C-Media Wave Device (stole it from my brothers computer xD but the freezing happened WAY after that)
RAM: 1Gig (dunno the type)
OS: Windows XP (SP2)

I just downloaded the latest drivers for my gfx card...played GW for a good 20-30 minutes, looking hopefully...but then it froze again. I think it may be a heat issue, since it's always very warm in my room (The sun is facing my window pretty much whenever its shinning, although for England its not that often XD and I also have the hot water boiler (those older big copper ones with that green insulation foam thing around it) in a cuboard in the corner, opposite from the pc though) and we're apparantly going through a "heat wave" (for england anyways), but also coz it happens most during the night, after it's been on for an hour or two...sometimes it does happen in the morning pretty much when i've just turned it on. This did happen around a month ago, and I opened up my PC and gave it a de-dusting (it was kinda bad) and it stopped for a week or two, but it's started again.

Anyways, all this is probably just pointless information, so if anyone has any way to help, or needs to me get some more, specific info, just let me know and how to do it and I will

Thank you for listening! hope someone can help

[jlhaslip 4]

Clean out the dust bunnies from the case and confirm that your fans are working properly... sounds like it is overheating.

[mm22 0]

well, since you don't see any "blue screen" it's likely to be "just" a hardware issue, not related to any particular driver, and it doesn't look like it's realted to that game since it also happens when you are not playing it... I think in a way you already answered your question yourself when you pointed out how it worked for some time after "de-dusting"... but sure it could be anything (power supply, motherboard, PCI devices...), one suggestion could be "debugging" the problem by removing hardware you don't need, like extra LAN/USB/Firewire PCI cards or things like that and see if the problem still arises... good luck!

[Dagoth Nereviar 0]

Thanks for the advice I'll do that later on (when it next freezes xD) and let you know if it helps. I should hopefully be getting a new PC in a month or two, so I don't mind having to clean it out every two or so week until thenI froze a bit ago, so I de-dusted my PC, and all seemed to be going well for about 2 hours, then it just suddenly froze again. This time it wasn't even loading anything. It was just sat quietly and thought "screw this *freeze*" xDJust a few minutes after I posted this, I loaded up Guild Wars to see how long it would go for. Froze just as it'd loaded the login screen. I know it's not just GW thats doing this, but it seems to be one of the major things to help cause it.

[Saint_Michael 3]

Since your using a old processor I would suggest to see if you have any more thermal paste between the processor and the motherboard. If you don't, that will cause your computer to over heat rather quickly and so run down to the PC store and get some for that. If that isn't the case, then I would say it is time to get a new motherboard and processor because graphic heavy games will work the hardware past its breaking point. Also if yo uhaven't done a fresh installation of your computer I would suggest looking into that and makign sure to save all the stuff that needs to be saving before reinstalling windows.

[Dagoth Nereviar 0]

Since your using a old processor I would suggest to see if you have any more thermal paste between the processor and the motherboard. If you don't, that will cause your computer to over heat rather quickly and so run down to the PC store and get some for that. If that isn't the case, then I would say it is time to get a new motherboard and processor because graphic heavy games will work the hardware past its breaking point. Also if yo uhaven't done a fresh installation of your computer I would suggest looking into that and makign sure to save all the stuff that needs to be saving before reinstalling windows.

I'll have to check the thermal paste...I am thankful for your suggestion and help, so dont think im throwing it back in your face But, since I'll hopefully be getting a completely new PC soon anyways, I'd rather not buy any new hardware or the hassle of doing a fresh installation...unless my PC blows up or something

[Dagoth Nereviar 0]

I de-dusted my processor (pretty much took it and the fan around it apart) and so far its been working ok for a long time tbh, so hopefully it's helped it...for now....