Hi there, Recently, my computer has a strange behaviour. After boot (and the account selection window is displayed), the computer hangs when I clicked in one of my account, or sometimes windows is logged-in, but it hanged immediately. I can't even move the mouse, and the only thing I can do is pressing Reset button. After reset, sometimes everything is fine, but sometimes, I needed to reset several times in order to get in the system. I suspect something's wrong with the hardware, but I don't know exactly which components (The HDD should be ok, cos' I did check entire sector, and result: no bad sector.) Anyone encouters this problem? Please give me advice. Thanks in advance.

could be multiple things, change the ram with new ram that you know is good, otherwise could be mobo or processor

Okay, let's start small. First off, what kind of video card do you have. If you have an ATI brand, and the new drivers, uninstall the new ati control panel (it is in add/remove programs, its the 44mb one (i forgot what its actual name is). My system would go really slow for like a minute or two, then work ok afterwards, but when i uninstalled that, it now works like a beaut. Take everything out of the computer, (e.g. sound card, lan card, etc.) and if it still does it, you know its not one of those. If it does not do it, put them back in there one at a time, install the drivers and see if it does it again. Make sure you run something like SpyBot and Spysweeper to get rid of adware and spyware on your computer. Before that, clean out your temp. internet files, cookies, and temp files. Also, under windows, there will be an uninstall folder, make sure that everything in that folder is deleted, along with another folder called temp files, make sure everything in there is deleted. After all that, go into safe mode, run a virus scan and a defragmentor. Make sure ur virus def are up to date. go to www.grisoft.com if you do not have an anti-virus software. Go to start-run-then type in msconfig, and unclick everything in there, if it still does it, you know that there is nothing in there that causes it, if it does not do it, clcik things one at a time until it does not. All these proecdures should help you in some way or another.

Ok, take everything out, except for the video card, unless you have an onboard video, which then you might have to go into your bios and switch between onboard and agp/pci.

Thanks for reply, please see below. - Okay, let's start small. First off, what kind of video card do you have. If you have an ATI brand, and the new drivers, uninstall the new ati control panel (it is in add/remove programs, its the 44mb one (i forgot what its actual name is). My system would go really slow for like a minute or two, then work ok afterwards, but when i uninstalled that, it now works like a beaut. - My video card is not ATI, it's NVIDIA GeForce2 MX (AGP Bus). However, I guess nothing's wrong with it. Take everything out of the computer, (e.g. sound card, lan card, etc.) and if it still does it, you know its not one of those. If it does not do it, put them back in there one at a time, install the drivers and see if it does it again. -- Uhmm, the point is it did not happen all the time, just several days or maybe weeks. So ... Make sure you run something like SpyBot and Spysweeper to get rid of adware and spyware on your computer. Before that, clean out your temp. internet files, cookies, and temp files. Also, under windows, there will be an uninstall folder, make sure that everything in that folder is deleted, along with another folder called temp files, make sure everything in there is deleted. After all that, go into safe mode, run a virus scan and a defragmentor. Make sure ur virus def are up to date. go to www.grisoft.com if you do not have an anti-virus software. ---- I'm using Lavasoft Adware Pro together Norton Antivirus ... I'm quite sure that's my computer is safe from virus and spyware ^_^. Go to start-run-then type in msconfig, and unclick everything in there, if it still does it, you know that there is nothing in there that causes it, if it does not do it, clcik things one at a time until it does not. - As I described, computer hanged when even it's still at the logon window (i.e no process has ability to run at that time, except special processes for booting.) All these proecdures should help you in some way or another. --- One more thing I think it's relevant: I run my computer nearly 24/24. Everything is fine for two years, till now ... At first, I thought it's the HDD, but later I found it's not. I examine the CPU, and what I found is there's a lot of dust on cards, fans. I wonder if is has anything to do with this?

For the past year my computer has had a similar problem. Between 2 - 9 minutes after booting the system completely freezes, necessitating resetting. The machine is an HP 720a purchased new in January 2002. What make is your computer? As with your problem this happens randomly, rarely after succesive boots and sometimes a month between occurrences, making troubleshooting very difficult. Over this time I've eliminated many possible hardware problems [I'm almost certain it is a hardware issue], but apart from driver updates, haven't tried anything with the video card and mine is the same as yours - nVIDIA GeForce2 MX. I wonder if the problem lies here? Please post any developments.

What a coincidence! My computer was also bought 2 years ago (i.e 2002). I'm not sure if the video card is the cause. Last week, there was very loud noise (u u u ...) from my CPU. I pluged and unpluged some of components in my CPU to check which one causes such noise. And it was the fan of the video card. I'm quite surprised because the video card has a fan, while others not. I don't know if it may relate to my freeze problem (I guess yes --_--). Strange! My computer has run smoothly for 2 years without problem, so what's wrong with it?