Excessive crashing, CPU related?

[Jeff_18]

Hi,

My computer has recently been crashing(computer locks up entirely and indefinitely) on seemingly mundane tasks such as browsing the web. I decided I was going to try a format of the OS drive to see if that remedied the issue, however I noticed that Windows(System Properties -> General) is telling me that my Athlon II X2 240 who is supposedly 2800MHz is only 784MHz. Does this mean my computer is having a problem utilizing the CPU? I am not sure what to make of it.

My questions are
Could this lead to my excessive crashing?
and if so,
What are the steps I must take to solve this problem?

Note: I didn't see a specific troubleshooting section, so I figured this would be best put in the CPU Forum.


Thanks

 

[GhislainG]

Does it pause, lock up or crash? Check the speed with CPU-Z while running an application that keeps the CPU busy, e.g., Prime95.

 

[Jeff_18]

It does a multitude of negative things. I wouldn't really describe it as pause though because once it starts, I absolutely have to power down. At first I can move the mouse around, but then soon enough even that ability is lost. There is no closing of tasks either because all functionality gone at that point. Whatever I was doing is still displayed.

I also got a blue screen recently and for the life of me I cannot remember exactly what it said went wrong but I want to say I remember something along the lines of "BAD_POOL."

So far today I've not gotten a crash. I completely removed Firefox from my system as it was the most prone to causing death, however it is not the only thing that seems to cause it.

I will do as you said and post the results.

 

[GhislainG]

Did you run memtest86 for several hours to make sure that your RAM is fine? I would suspect the PSU or the motherboard more than the CPU. Can you list your system specs?

 

[Jeff_18]

Well no sooner than 2 seconds after I posted the reply containing the words "So far today I've not gotten a crash." did I immediately crash. Oddly, the music I had running was still playing. I wonder if it is my video card in that case.

I restarted the system and no sooner than after I logged in did I get it again. It's completely random for whenever it wants to be stable and for how long.

Specs:

Athlon II X2 240 - 2.8Ghz
GSkill DDR2 800 - 2.0Gb (1.0Gb x 2)
WD Green - 500Gb
Radeon(Sapphire) HD 4670 GDDR3 - 512MB

If you want the Mobo/PSU models I can get those too.
I am not 100% sure on the mobo without looking but I believe it's Biostar TA790GXE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138152R&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Motherboards+-+AMD-_-Biostar-_-13138152R

I believe I have a spare everything if I absolutely had to test every single component.


I will try to get it running again to try what you said before.

 

[GhislainG]

Since that motherboard has on-board video, it's easy to determine if the video card is defective. It can basically be any component, but I'd swap the motherboard and CPU only if nothing else resolved the issue.

 

[marcellis22]

Yes, it's easy as GhislainG says... Replace EVERYTHING with something new and all your problems will go away... Good call G... Make sure the motherboard you're using has the latest BIOS applied, and do a good chkdsk on the hard drive...

 

[13thmonkey]

run speed fan or something similar (rivatuner perhaps to check gpu too) and check all the temps you can find.

 

[werxen]

Did you run memtest86 for several hours to make sure that your RAM is fine? I would suspect the PSU or the motherboard more than the CPU. Can you list your system specs?

+1

RAM or PSU problem sounds like.

 

[GhislainG]

Yes, it's easy as GhislainG says... Replace EVERYTHING with something new and all your problems will go away... Good call G... Make sure the motherboard you're using has the latest BIOS applied, and do a good chkdsk on the hard drive...

I didn't suggest to replace everything at once, but since the OP has spares (they are not necessarily new and he doesn't have to buy anything), replacing one component at a time takes out the guesswork and it's quick. One starts with the easy to replace components like the video card, etc. Flashing the BIOS might help, but in my experience it rarely resolves that type of issue.

 

[Jeff_18]

Thanks for the replies. I seem to have fixed the problem. I decided on a whim to scan for malware and whatnot as I am not the only use of this computer. Lo and behold malwarebytes found some.

unfortunately the problem persisted even after the removal of the dreaded XP Antivirus/Antivirus XP. Something malwarebytes couldn't detect I figured so I just formatted the OS drive and downloaded drivers for the ethernet and video from my laptop and it's back to fast.

It was probably a combination of overloading the Processor and RAM. The odd thing was the XP antivirus didn't actually start the pop-ups until I scanned for malware.


Hmph.

 

[Jeff_18]

Best answer selected by Jeff_18.