Computer freezes, I dont know why

korter

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Dec 13, 2009
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18,510
Windows XP media center edition, 1 gb of ram, SP3

My computer started to slow down a lot and would shut down out of nowhere, eventually it didn't turn on at all. The problem was the psu. I replaced it but problems persist.

Computer boots normally I can log in but when I try to use a program it usually freezes. Firefox will open and I can surf the net for about ten minutes then it slows down drastically until it freezes. I notice in task manager that PF usage climbs high as firefox slows down. IE works normally but if I open another program winamp for example it freezes completely and makes one continuous beep. Hard drive activity will go on for minutes while nothing is running.

none of this happened before the first psu started to die I think it did some damage but I don't know what.

 
Solution
When your system experiences a number of 'crashes' some OS files will become corrupt. Try running a chkdsk first.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

If that does not help, a reinstall of the OS may be an option also. Before a reformat and reinstall, perhaps try a different working video card and also other RAM.
Well, list the computer's specifications including MB, CPU, RAM, video card, HD, PSU, etc. Or list the model number is the system is prebuilt by HP, DELL, etc. So far we know you have a computer that crashes and has XP Media Ceneter addition installed.
 

korter

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Dec 13, 2009
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Motherboard - Dell DXP061

CPU - Intel core 2 6400 @ 2.13GHz

RAM - 1 GB total 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz ( PC2-5300 )

Video card - 256MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO

Hard Drive - WDC WD2502ABYS-18B7A0 232 GB

PSU - BFG GX-550


prebuilt by dell

original hard drive was WD2500JS - 75NCB3 ordered current one from Dell
 

TegGhola

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Dec 9, 2009
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I don't think a dodgy PSU would lead to a growing pagefile (I assume that's what you mean by PF).

Are you sure you're machine isn't bogged down by malware?

Do you get this behaviour if you use software other than Firefox? It's possible that a dodgy extension or patch has caused a bug that is snaffling up all of your RAM until the machine goes into a coma.
 

korter

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Dec 13, 2009
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I am using avast anti virus home edition

I ran chkdsk, no errors. Scanned for malware and really only adware was found because I had done a full virus scan recently.

other programs have froze but I also suspect it was because something is using the ram.

page file usage went high again, this time without firefox even open and I had barely any available ram, ashwebsv.exe had a huge virtual memory size in task manager.

I stopped on access protection for avast and page file came down and available ram went up

seems like avast is the problem

what should I use instead of avast?
 

korter

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Dec 13, 2009
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just got stop error

Event Type: Error
Event Source: System Error
Event Category: (102)
Event ID: 1003
Date: 12/14/2009
Time: 5:38:42 PM
User: N/A
Computer: DEL2
Description:
Error code 1000000a, parameter1 00000000, parameter2 0000001c, parameter3 00000000, parameter4 80538102.


Data:
0000: 53 79 73 74 65 6d 20 45 System E
0008: 72 72 6f 72 20 20 45 72 rror Er
0010: 72 6f 72 20 63 6f 64 65 ror code
0018: 20 31 30 30 30 30 30 30 1000000
0020: 61 20 20 50 61 72 61 6d a Param
0028: 65 74 65 72 73 20 30 30 eters 00
0030: 30 30 30 30 30 30 2c 20 000000,
0038: 30 30 30 30 30 30 31 63 0000001c
0040: 2c 20 30 30 30 30 30 30 , 000000
0048: 30 30 2c 20 38 30 35 33 00, 8053
0050: 38 31 30 32 8102




no idea what this means, computer seemed to be running fine again