Random freezes, help me diagnose

[kaizersose]

Having issues with my homebuild that I put together in June 2003 (see sig). It ran gloriously (minus one HD failure which was replaced by WD under warranty) until now. It has all kinds of wierd issues such as:
-Right before it gets to the windows logon screen, it reboots.
-It gets to the logon screen, I click my username, it locks up. Hard reboot required.
-If I leave it on too long, it locks up. Hard reboot required.
-If it goes to the screensaver (full screen photos of mine) it will eventually lock up. Hard reboot required.
-Starting up too many programs at once, it locks up. Hard reboot required.

This all started a few days ago. My guess is that it is the processor which means all new internals and -$500 for me. Any clues? It really ran great up until now, makes me sad. Thanks for the help.

 

[kaizersose]

anyone?

 

[ianhellman]

If you have access to another computer with a burner, get and burn this:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

it has diagnostic tools on there. if everything checks out, it could be something silly like a bad expansion card (eg modem, nic, soundcard). Remove everything except video card (obviously) and see if it still happens.

I agree with your guess that its the processor but bad memory could do that also and its cheap (relatively)

 

[oynaz]

Also, download Ubuntu and burn a live-CD. Boot it, and see if the problems persist. Run Memtest from the CD as well.

 

[kaizersose]

ok, thanks for the replies. i think i will start with ultimate boot cd , then Ubuntu go from there.

 

[kaizersose]

so i ran SeaTools and it said I had file system errors on my 200GB PATA drive. How do I repair?

 

[bluestrobe]

how many errors. I thought Seaatools had an option to repair a drive. If not try to repair it with scandisk.