Computer randomly freezes.

[Shawn]

It can be on for 4 hours, or 12. Usually, nothing is going on in the background -- I'll leave the computer idle for a few hours and come back and it'll be froze.

By froze, I mean the clock has stopped in Windows, mouse/keyword don't work, nothing is moving on the screen. You know, frozen.

I thought it could've been the memory, replaced that -- still broken.

Any help?

[fumbler]

Are your fans are still functioning correctly? Could be the computer overheating?

[r2d2]

I had a problem like that - and it was caused by memory running at the wrong speed (this was back in PC100/PC133 days though :) ). Have you tried it with one stick of RAM?

Might also be worth checking you don't have any unwanted processes running, or checking things that run from startup (from Start->Run->msconfig->StartUp, rather than the Startup folder in the start menu)?

[Shawn]

I just reinstalled a new operating system -- did a clean install to Windows Vista. So all old settings (viruses/trojans) etc are probably not the culprit.

Haven't tried just one stick of RAM.

[Chris]

maybe its a vista bug.

[Shawn]

It happened on XP for a long time. It's not the OS.

[r2d2]

Power supply? Do you have a decent branded one? A solid 12V rail seems pretty important these days.

How about heat? Its not anti virus running, and overheating the CPU? I guess that would probably cause a shutdown/restart though?

[Erin]

>it'll be froze. [sic]

Yeah, check the power supply. Happened to me once; I swapped it out for something stronger, and was good to go after that.