How to solve my hanging/freezing problem?

[HARRISON_C]

Hey all,

I built my new PC about two months ago, and it's been wonderful so far, but ever since it's conception I've had the same problem.

Audio will either loop or stop completely, which is followed by the freezing/hanging of my system shortly after. Everything that I tried to do while the computer was frozen will happen in a matter of seconds right after it returns to normal.

-These seem to happen randomly, with nothing triggering them. I can be playing a game or just listening to music while not touching my computer.
-They last about 15-45 seconds.
-I've heard it is a harddrive issue. I DID drop my harddrive (on the carpet while it was bubblewrapped) while I was building my computer, but I'd rather have a more confident answer before dropping some money on a new harddrive.

Thanks in advance, I'll be happy to answer any questions that could help.

 

[frozenlead]

Did you test your power supply before you powered it up? Was it functioning normally? Are you loading it too high?

Also, you cant test to see if the restart is your power supply or hard disk by unplugging the SATA cable from the disk (but not the power!) and running a Live CD OS (Ubuntu is good, here).

Edit: Also, running memtest is an excellent idea. Did you be sure to set your RAM voltages?

 

[daft]

if you feel the need to test the HDD. hdtune has a check disk utility built in.

http://www.hdtune.com/

also, check temps, open up task manager and see if there is anything using up the cpu or memory. and, if all else fails, get a pad of paper and pen/pencil and write down everything you do up to the first freeze. restart, and do something that you didn't do before untill the first freeze. compare and contrast

 

[HARRISON_C]

I ran the hdtune software, and apparently my harddrive is perfectly fine. :O

I'm going to need some blank CDs for the memtest, but I'll make another post when I get to run it.