It seems that my computer will freeze about 5 minutes after it has started up. Everything loads up fine and I can start a program or get online, but after 5 minutes it will freeze.. I tried starting up in diagnostic mode and ran the thorough scan disk, but it again froze after 5 minutes of scanning. Same in Safe Mode.. I'm at a loss to what the problem could be, or to even know where to start to fix this problem. I don't know what could be freezing the computer, but just before it happens I will hear this click sound in the hard drive, then then it will freeze...

Check the cpu fan. It may have stopped and the chip is overheating.

I took a look at the fan and vacuumed out some dust just now. The fan seems to be working okay and there wasn't really that much dust in there. I am running the scan disk again now after the clean out, and so far it has made it past the 5 minute freeze up time.. Do you think that even a little bit of dust can make that much of a difference? Could it be maybe the dust that was around the ram causing a problem too?

As Corn has mentioned above it could be problem with processor overheating. If u have more than one RAM card then try interchanging the slots... OR even the RAM is properly functioning... Check for ACPI power management being ON...(U can find this in the control panel "Power management") If it's ON turn in to never.... this might help. Try checking for a VIRUS and also get u'r hardisk checked for safety purpose.... Bye...

Is there a way to know if your cpu is over heating? A test that can tell you how hot your cpu is? I have my power management set at never. I only have one ram card. If I take it out and maybe vacuum the slot for dust and then put it back in, would that be safe to do? Is it okay to just take it out and put it back in? I know that the power supply should un-pugged, but is there anything else I should know about before I try to do this? I don't think it is a virus, I had just done a scan the other day, and made sure it was updated.. Though this freezing thing started last week. It seemed to of gone away for a few days, after I had done a thorough Scan Disk that found some errors and corrected them. Also Norton Disk Scan found time bad clusters that were also removed. It all started after some items were deleted from the "temp" folder.. Since the vacuum it hasn't froze yet and it still is doing the the Scan Disk..

Speed Fan from download.com will tell you if your cpu is overheating.

click on start+run+ type msconfig press ok will take u to system configuration utility. Go to the general tab and select 'Selective Start up' and then uncheck the box which says "Load start up items/programs".Click APPLY and then OK. Then it will prompt you to restart the system. do this step and put the message up here....