Computer froze, need help

[Unannounced Fart]

So today my computer froze on me. At first, it would freeze up within about 5 minutes of me turning it on. It locks up and I can't do anything. The cursor doesn't move and I can't even use ctrl+alt+delete. Now, it won't even boot up. It turns on for a few seconds, then just shuts down before it can boot up. Then it turns on by itself, but never boots up.

The only change I've made to my computer was updating my video driver a few days ago. My graphics card and power supply are pretty new. My CPU and RAM are pretty old (almost 5 years old). I checked my components to make sure they're properly plugged in.

Any idea what the problem is? Thanks in advance.


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[Crystallas]

Could be a number of things. To make it simple, here's the two things that you should narrow it down to.

The easiest fix would be, trying to boot the system, one stick of ram at a time. Then you have your answer if that works. A bad stick of ram.

Fried controller of sorts, corrupted bios, blown IC/Cap on the motherboard/PSU/expansion cards(including GPU) sound more like what is going on. Explaining how to fix these problems would be like a crash course in electronic engineering. I could try, but the risk or further damage and safety are not for novices, and you'll be best off just buying new parts.

 

[Unannounced Fart]

Could be a number of things. To make it simple, here's the two things that you should narrow it down to.

The easiest fix would be, trying to boot the system, one stick of ram at a time. Then you have your answer if that works. A bad stick of ram.

Fried controller of sorts, corrupted bios, blown IC/Cap on the motherboard/PSU/expansion cards(including GPU) sound more like what is going on. Explaining how to fix these problems would be like a crash course in electronic engineering. I could try, but the risk or further damage and safety are not for novices, and you'll be best off just buying new parts.

Thank you!!! It ended up being a bad stick of RAM. I'm glad you reminded me to check that, it saved me a trip to the repair guy and $$$. Appreciate it, man.

 

[Ares]

Thank you!!! It ended up being a bad stick of RAM. I'm glad you reminded me to check that, it saved me a trip to the repair guy and $$$. Appreciate it, man.

Bad stick of RAM... I was thinking it was gonna be worse, das not so bad.

 

[Unannounced Fart]

Bad stick of RAM... I was thinking it was gonna be worse, das not so bad.

Yeah, I considered a bad stick of RAM as the best case scenario.

 

[Crystallas]

yay

 

[clonetrooper264]

So today my computer froze on me. At first, it would freeze up within about 5 minutes of me turning it on. It locks up and I can't do anything. The cursor doesn't move and I can't even use ctrl+alt+delete.

This happened to my parents' desktop recently actually. Would boot fine in safe mode but would freeze within 10 minutes when booted normally, even without logging into anything. I figured if it was some sorta software that loaded at startup that was causing it but now I wonder if it was somehow a loose stick of RAM lol.

 

[Monk]

I think you need peanut butter and a golf stick.

 

[Unannounced Fart]

This happened to my parents' desktop recently actually. Would boot fine in safe mode but would freeze within 10 minutes when booted normally, even without logging into anything. I figured if it was some sorta software that loaded at startup that was causing it but now I wonder if it was somehow a loose stick of RAM lol.[/COLOR]

It could be a loose stick, or just a bad stick altogether, like mine was.

 

[winos5]

So asking this will reveal my lack of computer expertise but just how do you fix a bad stick of RAM. Had a similar issue on a computer and my brother told me it was probably the PSU and I was fucked and easy solution was to get a new computer which I did.

 

[Ares]

So asking this will reveal my lack of computer expertise but just how do you fix a bad stick of RAM. Had a similar issue on a computer and my brother told me it was probably the PSU and I was fucked and easy solution was to get a new computer which I did.

If a stick of RAM is bad you pull it out and replace it with a new one, you can't fix a bad stick of RAM.

Crys prolly gonna tell me you could fix it with a soldering gun and an Electrical Engineering degree, but let's go with you can't fix it.

If you have more than 1 stick of RAM in the machine you pull the bad one, and you can run with just the other sticks, but obviously you will have less RAM available.

If you want the same amount of RAM you just buy a stick to replace your bad one, shut the machine down, unplug the power, stick the new RAM in, and boot back up.

 

[Crystallas]

Hay. I actually have fixed and modified sticks of ram without an electrical engineering degree!

lol, yeah, you just replace the stick. A lot of manufacturers offer some form of lifetime warranty on memory if you purchased the memory separately (ie: build the system yourself, or upgraded later). Something to keep in mind.

 

[winos5]

Thanks