Computer freezes followed by start up errors

[Welsper]

Hi all,

I built a computer about 2 or 3 months ago, and it was working perfectly fine until it began to freeze. I only notice this while playing World of Warcraft, though there is slow down to everything following a freeze sometimes. It would show errors about boot configurations on bootup sometimes (even if there was no problems before it). Sometimes when playing WoW, it would freeze, with the mouse being movable and occasionally I was able to close the game and restart it, but it usually froze everything. Upon those complete crashes, I'd reset and then "A disk error has occurred" would show up and pretty much randomly go away.

It occurred with both XP (home) and Vista (32bit). There's 4gb of ram, but only a little over 3gb is accounted for, which I figured was normal since they're 32bit. I figured it was a HD problem at first, so I bought a new one a couple weeks ago and it was working fine until just now. Playing World of Warcraft, it froze on me and I restarted, then boom... A Disk Error Has Occurred. Now it's extremely slow to start up, and drivers are missing all over the place. I pretty much can't do anything while it's in that state, not even shutdown, as it just locks up. I'm really out of ideas besides just buying a new MB and Vid Card. Or that maybe it might be a heat issue as the room I'm in gets pretty humid throughout the day and night.

I'm using the following, purchased off Newegg:
- BIOSTAR TForce TP45HP LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
- EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
- Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80569Q9550
- SIIG IC-710012-S2 7.1 Channels PCI Interface SoundWave
- CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-8500C5C G
- SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive

 

[banthracis]

Well Imma be lazy and just quote myself from another post^^

Dl hardware monitor to see your system temps and lots of other useful info.

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

It sounds like you got a bad HD's, though getting 2 bad ones in a row is really bad luck!


Here's the tests i recommend you doing, just go down the list till you find the component that's not working.


1. Dl memtest

http://www.memtest.org/

burn onto a cd and boot. You're gonna want to run this overnight for ~12 hrs. This will tell you if your ram has issues.

2. If memtest indicates your Ram is fine, then DL Samsung's HD diagnostic tool. I haven't actually used this before (I use WD HD's) so you'll have to read the readme and follow instruction there.

http://www.samsung.com/global/busi [...] HUTIL.html

3. I doubt it's the CPU, but DL and run Prime 95

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/

Make sure there's 1 instance of prime 95 running for each core. You're gonna wanna do this for 8 hrs at least.


4. If ram, CPU and HD are fine, then you're gonna have to start getting new parts. First off, borrow if you can, if not find a nearby comp store with a nice return policy .

First, get a new PSU and see if your system still has issues. If this doesn't help then

Second, get a new GPU. It can be an old one from a friend or something. If this doesn't work

Third, get a new mobo and install everything onto that.

If all this doesn't work then somewhere along they way, you either replaced a bad part with a bad part, or screwed up cuz you've just tested everything in your comp ^^

edit: If none of these tests fix your issue, you can also check your cables on the extremely (like winning lottery chances) unlikely case that you have a bad cable. Also check for the (more likely) insulation got stripped/damaged cable issue.