OK this is my first computer-related question in a long time so I've been doing pretty good. I recently reformatted my hard drives and re-installed everything. The problem I am having is my computer keeps freezing up. I'll be searching the net, running a program, or just moving the mouse cursor and it just freezes. I try to wait it out but it just remains the same, frozen. I try to use Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart my system but it does not work and I have to push the reset button on the front of my case. I scanned my computer with my virus scanner, which is up-to-date, and it did not find a infection and I also ran my ad-ware, spyware, and malware programs and they found nothing as well. Here are two weird things though. When I push the reset button on the front of the case and my computer restarts it does not do a disk scan for some reason. Also the My Computer icons on my desktop and Start menu were renamed oddly also. Here are two photos of my desktop and the renamed icon: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/jakz34/MessedUp.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/jakz34/MessedUp2.jpg So does anybody have any ideas on what this problems could be?
Naww... sounds like hardware. I'd say you have bad RAM or a bad processor or video card. OR Your RAM, processor, hard drive, or video card is overheating.
OK, if it is a hardware problem why would my "My Computer" icon rename itself to numbers? Rocket River: I already ran a virus scan and it found nothing as I originally posted and it is up to date. come: checked and all drivers were present and up to date except a USB driver but I took care of that. droxford: is there anyway to tell for sure, my motherboard is equipped to automatically shut off if over-heating occurs and I have 4 fans running in my case so I don't think it is over heating. Now tht I think about it, the video card may be the problem. Sometimes when the monitor shuts off and I move the mouse the monitor reads something like: "Device Unplugged or Disconnected" and it does this quite often (several times weekly) but when I restart all is well. So replace the video card?
what programs are you running in the background when it freezes? If you have a lower end processor like a celeron and are using like a file sharing site such as limewire or kazaa or something like that and also doing other things like surfing the net or running other programs, the processor will get overworked and will lock up. If thats not the case, then i'm not sure what to do, but I have seen this problem before.
ugh.. I hate to walk people through a hardware problem. The way I troubleshoot them is, I plug in some extra RAM that I have and check it out. Then I plug in an extra video card that I have. But I can do this because I have those parts to test with. The good part about it is... I'm able to quickly ascertain whether or not it's the video card or RAM. It's hard for me to tell you to 'replace' the video card. If you have an extra one, I might recommend that you take out your current one (carefully - and take measures to prevent static) and plug in the old one and see if you have the same problem. But I don't think it's wise to go out and buy a new video card without knowing for sure what the problem is.
you ever thought about buying one of those 100 dollar computers from fry's and just installing a fresh copy of windows on it? maybe all your problems will be worked out in one purchase? heck use your old windows copy
I will go with this one. I think your hard drive has bad sectors. Find a tool or check the disk with Disk Defragmenter. About the renaming of the "My Computer" icon, search the Internet for "renames My Computer".
