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My computer system has two Hard disks (One on 320SATA(boot disk with one partition) and one on 80Gb P-ATA(C:,d:,e:,f:)),1Gb SDDDR1 RAM, an Nvidia 6600 graphics card, a Gigabyte motherboard and a 64bit AMD3200+ processor.From 6 months or so I have noticed that the computer Hangs/Restarts without reason at n minutes after boot(where n is a random number).

I have tried updating the OS to include the latest patches, Installed Avast antivirus, checked working with Zone Alarm firewall and removed it as well... I have also tried cleaning the system for dust particles etc.

Is there anything else which I can do to possibly get the computer to run sane? Please don't tell me to throw the computer...I can run even the latest games on it(In the lowest resolution of course) so performance is not an issue at all.

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get rid of windows (xp) ;] – ThiefMaster Jan 25 '11 at 9:27
After restarting, you might be able to get some information about what happened from the system log files, which can be examined in the Event Viewer which is in the Administrative Tools control panel. – martineau Jan 25 '11 at 12:13
@ThiefMaster: That wouldn't help if it's a hardware problem. – martineau Jan 25 '11 at 12:14
@martineau :Already checked event viewer...nothing unusual – Mulki Jan 25 '11 at 14:05
@ThiefMaster: I thought it might be hardware fault...but I have not added anything new...It has worked perfectly for 4years...so im guessing either one of the hardware pieces is malfunctioning or it is the OS upgrade...Not sure which route to take to troubleshoot the issue – Mulki Jan 25 '11 at 14:07
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2 Answers

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Most simplistic and possibly fastest solution.

Backup your data, format your system hard drive and reinstall windows.

This will basically take much less time than you think it will AND pretty much guarentee that if you still have problems afterwards, its hardware related.

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Excellent Idea...I was thinking on same terms..+1 for you once I have enough rep to upmark – Mulki Jan 29 '11 at 10:11
seeing as you're the one who asked the question, you do have the capability of selecting my answer as the correct one, which also gives points and reputation :) – g19fanatic Jan 30 '11 at 5:18
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These are the classic symptoms of a bad power supply. The exact same thing happened to my old 3.0ghz Pentium 4, Radeon 9800 Pro Dell Dimension 4600. Dell put in a cheap power supply, which didn't really cut it and began to fail just after the warranty expired. If this happens when your gaming or doing other graphics card/CPU intensive tasks, it is definitely your power supply. I bought a cheap but redundant 450 watt power supply on Newegg (which was a major upgrade from my 250W or 150W, or whatever the piece of junk was), and you should too.

Although if it really does happen randomly, it could mean other things. Your CPU or RAM or GPU could be overheating. Try opening the case and using a fan to blow air inside, and see if it reboots after n minutes.

It could be a bad CPU cooler, so you might want to monitor CPU temperatures and re-seat the heatsink. Or, you could have bad sticks of RAM, which cause all sorts of stability problems. Do a memory test with a 3rd party program, and if that is the case, you may need more RAM.

Download Prime95, and run the memory intensive torture test to see if your CPU or RAM is the problem. http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/

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The hanging is comepletely random...It happens when I browse the net(not even videos)...On restart it works fine..but after n minutes it hangs again...It might just be the RAM..Let me give the mem tests a go..and il let you know – Mulki Jan 29 '11 at 10:10
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