PC locking up

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vindex1963

Senior Member
I have a Dell Inspiron 570 windows 7 64 bit AMD Athlon II X2 250 processor. I've had so much trouble with this machine locking randomly from start up to processing photos to the net. It will do it 30 times in an hour then not do it for 3 months. Lately it's been really bad. Months ago I added a Nvidia GeForce 550Ti and a OSZ ZS series 750w power supply thinking that would help. Didn't help. I have 8gb Corsair XMS3 DDR3 platinum memory in 2gb sets X 4 sets. I had 8gb of memory master memory 2gbX4 and was told it was junk and that was the problem so I bought the Corsair as a replacement so it kind of rules out bad memory I guess because the machine still locks.


If I leave it alone it will start up after 10 seconds to 3 minutes that varies also.
For the life of me I can't pinpoint when it started.
 
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§am

Senior Member
Save everything you need off the HDD, then do a clean wipe and install your OS from scratch.

It could also be an imminent h/w failure - possibly drive on the blink, or faulty mobo.

Hard to tell from the little info so far - what kinda errors do u get, if any, have u tried launching in safe mode etc

More details please
 
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Dave_W

The Dude
Chances are much more likely to be software or a random registry error than a physical issue. So I'm with SS381, reinstall the OS. And with a Dell you don't need the install disc, it's already on your HD. Restart holding down the F8 key and it will bring you to the recovery page.
 
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Ruidoso Bill

Senior Member
Download and run from disc Ubuntu and give the hardware a good workout. If it runs with linux you have a software issue and the follow the advice to reinstall windows. I am think you probably made the recovery dvd's so it's a piece of cake after backing up. Another question has it always down it or can you pinpoint a date or update? Another option is to leave your current hard drive alone and install a fresh hard drive and then do the system recovery dvd's, that keeps everything as is with no content destruction of your original hard drive, good excuse to pick up that 3 tb drive you've been wanting anyway lol.
 
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vindex1963

Senior Member
It freezes anywhere from the second I turn it on, processing a photo, checking email or even this message. I've done a restart and it's frozen shutting down and starting up. It stops working and gives no error codes. Sometimes the screen almost fades to all white but not always. Sometimes the mouse pointer on the screen turns to a blue spinning wheel but not always.
 
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Ruidoso Bill

Senior Member
The beauty of running your pc with an Ubuntu Live disk is you can verify your hardware. Once you download you boot from the disk and you can even go online etc thus verifying the hardware. I could even be a simple thermal paste issue but verify before you continue.

Once you create a disk you simply place it in the drive and use f12 for select boot device "CD/DVD Drive"and it will install and add drivers for you system. Nothing gets written to the hard drive and your system will be running other than windows.
 
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WhiteLight

Senior Member
My suggestion would be to get your system checked first.
Since this freezing thing happens right from the moment you turn the machine on, it may not at all be related to the OS.
You may want to first check your motherboard, processor & RAM modules.
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
Just a thought, but....have you tried running CCleaner at all? It might just clean up your system. By the way...CCleaner stands for Crap Cleaner.
 
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§am

Senior Member
How old is your system? (Being lazy and not looking up when your model of Dell was released).

Again, the starup freezes could be s/w or h/w no specific way to tell from the info given. have you run it in Safe Mode yet (hit F8 just after your POST screen disappears).
 
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vindex1963

Senior Member
WhiteLight said:
My suggestion would be to get your system checked first.
Since this freezing thing happens right from the moment you turn the machine on, it may not at all be related to the OS.
You may want to first check your motherboard, processor & RAM modules.
Click to expand...
It doesn't always freeze right from the start just sometimes.

fotojack said:
Just a thought, but....have you tried running CCleaner at all? It might just clean up your system. By the way...CCleaner stands for Crap Cleaner.
Click to expand...

I have ran that and I've also ran the Dell system diagnostic and all was fine.



I did change the power settings so the screen goes off but not the computer and as I write this no lock ups.
That may change but for now it's good. I'll keep you informed. I loaded "Advanced Systems Care" and it has a power option that
shuts the computer down and it doesn't need a password to start it's called turbo mode.

As far as "get a mac" thanks for the help but I'm good.
 
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Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
vindex1963 said:
It doesn't always freeze right from the start just sometimes.



I have ran that and I've also ran the Dell system diagnostic and all was fine.



I did change the power settings so the screen goes off but not the computer and as I write this no lock ups.
That may change but for now it's good. I'll keep you informed. I loaded "Advanced Systems Care" and it has a power option that
shuts the computer down and it doesn't need a password to start it's called turbo mode.

As far as "get a mac" thanks for the help but I'm good.
Click to expand...


I once had such a problem and it was faulty memory. It was extremely annoying since I didn't have a clue when this was going to happen. All could be well for a while and then, without warning, bam! restart… But you said your memory was replaced…??? Then I have no clue. Sorry for this situation, it is not fun to try and trouble shoot these intermittent problems.
 
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