Computer Freezing

I recently (last night) reformatted my computer and reinstalled Windows XP
Home Edition. I installed my drivers directly from the manufactor's websites.
When my computer freezes the mouse stops responding and you can't get any
response from the computer from Alt-tabbing, windows key, or Ctrl+alt+deling
but the computer continues to run. It does not shut down or crash. (No errors
appear, No BSOD) I believe it must be a hardware problem. I've done a CHKDSK
on my harddrive and will do a memory test on my RAM as soon as I find a
floppy disk. Before I reformatted I have never had or seen this problem
before on my computer. I have fully updated windows with Windows Update. I am
also currently running a scan of my computer with OneCare. I am also
monitoring the temperature of my computer with a motherboard monitor and it
isn't overheating. I don't really know where to go from here and I can't
really afford to take it to a computer shop that will just convince me to buy
new unneeded parts for my desktop. :( Can anyone suggest any help?

A memory and hard drive test would be the first things to do. For the hard
drive, download the diagnostic utility from the hard drive mfg's website, do
not rely on chkdsk, is is not a hardware diagnostic.

Anaka:
1. You say this "freezing" problem arose after you "reformatted my computer"
and apparently fresh-installed the XP OS. Did you do this fresh install of
XP because of some problem(s) you were previously having with your system?
Could this have any bearing on your present problem?

2. Do you think there could be some problem with your HDD (notwithstanding
the chkdsk routine)? Think it might be wise to check out the disk with the
diagnostic utility that should be available for download from the
manufacturer of the HDD?

3. When you say you "reformatted my computer" - did you do this through the
XP installation process, i.e., through the XP installation CD? If not, how
did you "reformat" the HDD? Are you working with multiple HDDs?

4. When you fresh installed the OS were there any problems of any kind
during the installation process? No error messages of any kind? It went
smoothly and without incident? And you were able to boot to a Desktop
immediately following the XP install? And you were able to install the
motherboard drivers without any problems immediately after the XP install,
right? So when did this "freezing" problem occur?

5. Do you think something possibly went awry with the OS installation
process and it may simply be worthwhile to undertake another fresh install?
Is this practical in your situation? Have you given that any thought?

6. As to your present problem - are you *always* able to boot to a Desktop
without incident? No problems at all re booting up?

7. When does this "freezing" occur? Right after bootup? At random times?
When you perform a specific act?

8. I take it from your description that when this "freezing" occurs, it
affects the mouse & keyboard but the screen display is unaffected - no black
screen or screen distortion, etc.

9. So what do you do when this happens? Reboot? Power down and start up
again? And the same "freezing" situation re:occurs?

10. You obviously was able to post your message re this problem? You did so
on the "problem" machine? Or are you using another PC?

11. And finally, just to repeat - you say (or at least inferred) that you
had no problems with your PC prior to undertaking a fresh install of the XP
OS, although it's unclear why you found it necessary to fresh install the
OS. That this problem arose *only* after you installed the OS, right?
Anna

Wow that's a lot of questions. I just did a memory test with Windows Memory
Diagonistics and it passed all the tests. I think this may be helpful, my
computer will also freeze in safe mode.

And to answer:
1. There were no problems prior to reformating my computer. The reason I
reformated was because I wanted a to optimize my system. I do this once or
twice a year when needed. Your harddrive becomes fragmented due to moving
files, downloading files, uninstalling and installing, and etc. I wanted to
clean my harddrive so I could have less cache misses. I was planning to
install all my programming applications (VS, DirectX SDK, V Tune, MSDN, etc.)
which eats up a lot of space and I need it to be as neatly placed as
possible. I hope that answers that question.

2. When I did a CHKDSK the last 2 steps (4 and 5) took a long time to
complete. Seeing as I have tested a lot of other things I believe it may be
the harddrive. I am having trouble finding the diagnostic utility for my
harddrive. The model is WDC WD800JB-00ETA0 if anyone can help me with that.

3. To reformat my computer I made a floopy bootdisk. Inserted it and let it
run. Restarted my computer with OS CD and went to the blue setup screen. I
deleted my old partition and then created a new one afterwards. It went
through the setup process and restarted. Then the OS setup started.
Everything went smoothly. I did not have any freezing problems at this point.

4. No error messages. Yes, I could boot up fine with the fresh install. I
immediately went to the motherboard's website let it scan and pick up my
motherboard which it did correctly. I downloaded all the drivers it listed.
No freezing occured after this point. I did windows updates. (SP1, SP2) It
had to of done about 200 updates throughout all of that. I updated my
graphics card drivers at this point. It wouldn't allow me to without .NET
2.0. After this point I started having freezing problems.

5. No I do not believe so.

6. The freezing is random. It may not even get to the logon screen. Most of
the time it does. Sometimes it freezes when you are logging on after you
clicked on your name. Sometimes it freezes when starting up programs. I have
no starting programs other than drivers. Sometimes it doesn't freeze for a
couple minutes to a couple hours. I haven't seen it go for longer than 2
hours without freezing.

7. See 6.

8. No the screen up stops updating. I do not get the white screen meaning my
graphics card ran out of memory or a black screen (no idea what that means).
No distortion as well.

9. I restart the computer with the restart key until it will allow me back on.

10. On the problem PC. Lol.

11. See 1.

did u find the solution im haveing the same exact problem except mine
did it before the reinstall of the os

[Godwyn]

I recently pretty much built a computer, everything except for the hard drive and cd drive. I got a new nvidia motherboard, and a radeon x 1650 ati card that required me to download net 2.0 as well, and since then, even with the latest drivers, I keep having the same problem. Complete unresponsiveness of the computer, except to a manual reboot and it will still sometimes freeze at the login screen. Other times, such as tonight, it runs fine for a few hours.

So far, none of the manufacturer websites have had any solutions

I took my computer into a computer shop to have them look at it. It has been
there for a week and they still don't know what's wrong with it. The last
time I talked to one of them (Saturday) they said they thought it was the
motherboard. I'll let you know when I find the solution.

I am having a similar problem however my computer only freezes upon
installing things, i have tested my HD and ram all passed. (w/ progs
from manufacturer) Computer even had vista before switching back
to xp. It had no problems in vista but it always had the xp
problem, its microsoft net frame work me thinks, can anyone link me
to the fix?

[Godwyn]

I would direct you to a fix if I could find one, :(, but I can not find anything published by Microsoft about the .NET framework that seems to address the issue. Have not seen any third party address the issue either.