Computer freezing solid... why?

Mutant_Fruit

Basically my computer is frequently freezing solid. This has only really started in the last few weeks. After a freeze like this, if i just reboot, the computer freezes again while trying to detect IDE drives on the initial boot screen and then throws up an error saying it can't find the system volume. But if i leave the computer off for a while, it starts up normally.

So far i've tried checking the PSU voltages, temps on GFX and CPU, checked the RAM and checked the HD's. All seem to be fine. The HD's passed chkdsk without a bother, and SiGuardian tells me the SMART tags are also perfect (looks like the important ones havn't changed from their default value, which is a good thing). No bad sectors to be seen.

What could it be? Is there any way to further stress test the HD's to find out if thats the problem? Or is it the motherboard? Or is it something completely different?

I'm at a loss here. But i might use this as a good time to upgrade the computer... :rolleyes:

EDIT: For those of you who say "Reinstall windows", that won't solve the problem. It's definately a hardware problem, otherwise the bios would never have trouble detecting the HD's.

liamo

It could be a dodgy IDE Controller.

Also, I wonder if perhaps there is a small break in the solder on the motherboard. When the PC heats up after constant use the resulting expansion might be causing an intermittently broken circuit.

Regards,

Liam

Mr Mojo

Try the HDD manuf web site, most of them supply specific diagnostic tools for their drives. This should help you narrow down the problem.

Good luck!