My computer hangs for no apparent reason. The screen goes black and it won't turn off by pressing the power button or the reset button. I have to either flip the switch on the power supply or unplug it. It doesn't happen at any specific time either. It sometimes happens on startup, when the system is idle, running games. I've tried to isolate the problem by removing all of the components like the video card (nVidia Geforce 3TI500), the sound card (Soundblaster Live Value!), the NIC and it still does it. I have 512MB RAM so I don't think it's a lack of memory problem. I also thought it was possibly overheating, so I got a new CPU fan and heatsink but that didn't help either. I also tried underclocking the CPU to see if that would help, but to no avail. So now I am out of ideas and getting very annoyed. Does anyone else have any ideas? Thanks a lot. CPU:AMD Athlon 1.2GHz RAM:512MB OS:Windows XP Pro. Motherboard: unknown

Look for errors/bad sectors on your hard drive. You may need your psu checking also. Feel to see if it's overheating,try swapping it with a spare or a freinds supply.

Check your power supply unit...it looks like it's underpowering your rig. In time, electronics go bad so you may want to buy a new PSU with a higher capacity.

I did a disk check and it didn't find any bad sectors. I also felt the powersupply and it didn't feel very hot at all. I'll try swapping out my powersupply for a newer one or one which puts out more power. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks a lot

Checked my psu and it's rated for 300W. I have 2x cdroms and 2x hard drives on top of the nvidia geforce 3 video card and the sound card. Is it not enough?

I have a similar problem to you. Mine will sometimes freeze within 5 minutes of startup, but if it doesnt freeze within that time, it wont freeze at all. At first I thought it was overheating. Then I thought it might be the RAM. Then I figured it could be the power supply. Well, I blew a big fan on it to cool it down, still froze. I tried switching out the RAM with some other RAM i had, still froze. I tried putting in a larger (400W) power supply from another system... Still froze! I have no idea what could be wrong with my stupid computer. Windows XP Pro Athlon 1800+ XP K7SEM mainboard 2 sticks Samsung 256 MB PC133 RAM MSI GeForce 4 Ti 4200 1 DVD Drive 1 CD-RW Drive 1 Hard Drive

I have the same problem with my XP Pro Compaq machine. Suddenly the screen goes black, and the network card just shuts down. No error message or blue screen, nada. But hear this, it is reproducible! I have narrowed it down somewhat, for me it happens only in Word2000, Windows Help, Photoshop, Paintshop Pro. So if I open the very same document, and do what I did before, sure enough it goes black again! My best bet is that it is a bug in XP, a bad one. But no SP so far has helped.