My computer is freezing and randomly restarting, what could it be?
Asked by
trypaw (
332
)
October 28th, 2012
I have a HP pavilion a720n desktop. Runs very well for its age and has had no previous issues. Well for months now I have had random freezing that varies. It could happen 2–3 times a day or not happen for a couple days or be gone for a week. I also have random restarts. I will be doing something on my computer such as web browsing or watching a video and all the sudden my computer reboots out of nowhere. It usually only does this a couple times a week. I’ve taken it to several places and they check my hardware, check for viruses, everything was fine last time they checked and it still hasn’t gotten better. I also did a fresh install of XP about 3 months ago and it was fine for maybe three weeks. I am getting very annoyed with this and I cannot figure it out! If anyone can please help me it would be greatly appreciated! Thank-you!
***Also at any given time it says I have 220–440mb available physical memory out of my 1GB. I’m not sure what that means and the number changes a lot can this have anything to do with it? I don’t even have a lot of programs on my computer so why is this number so low?
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34 Answers
@BosM I opened it up and cleaned it already, was sorta dirty but not too bad. I will check out the PS link though. Thankyou!
Sounds like an intermittent connection to me.
If you haven’t done so already re-seat the RAM/memory chips. Also, one at a time, unplug and replug the ends of the cable that goes from the motherboard to the hard drive to refresh the connections. Do the same for the big cable from the power supply to the motherboard.
It’s not that unusual for a poor connection to develop, and it’s very easy to fix that so it’s worth trying up front.
Sounds kind of like a bad memory stick to me. if re-seating doesn’t help find some known good memory sticks and try that.
@dabbler Thankyou I will try that, very good suggestion.
So I was cleaning the inside of my computer out, and as I restarted it came up with a window saying: “Windows has recovered form a serious error” I have gotten this before but it is rare. Anyways I went into the details and it gave me these two links on my PC.
C:\DOCUME~1\desiree\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERc54a.dir00\Mini102812–01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\desiree\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERc54a.dir00\sysdata.xml
Does any of this make any sense? Or does anyone know what it could be now that I have these specific errors? Would these codes help at all in pinpointing maybe what the issue is?
I also had ran a hard drive test earlier yesterday on my hard drive that turned out fine, and I ran memtest 86 to check my memory. I have 1gb of RAM and I ran it for 10 hours with no errors. I really don’t know what else to do? This problem isn’t to frequent but it happens in the most inconvenient times.
C:\DOCUME~1\desiree\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERc54a.dir00\Mini102812–01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\desiree\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERc54a.dir00\sysdata.xml
Apparently the error is with a word document titled “desiree”, that’s in your Temp folder.
Try this:
start > Search > All files and folders > More advanced options. Ensure that the “Search system folders”, “Search hidden files and folders”, and “Search subfolders” boxes are checked.
Click on search to start the search. Give the Search function a few minutes to run and see if it finds that file.
If it does find it in the Temp folder, please let me know.
@brian1946 Ok, sounds good I will try that. So what exactly should I search for? One of those links or both?
You should search for “desiree”. Enter “desiree” in the “All or part of the file name:” box in the Search template, and then click on “Search”.
You’ll probably see both of those links and others in the search results, once the search is done.
You’re welcome.
You should be able to delete the “desiree” document from the Temp folder, but please let me know what you find before you do.
Ok :) So far it is still searching it says… looking in local hard drives (C:) and in sub folders, looking is system folders, looking in hidden files and folders. and then it says at the bottom 0 items found. but it is still searching. Do I continue to let it search?
Also I’ve been looking at my specs with speccy and I see that my MB is running at 60 C is this normal?
disregard my last comment… Anyways, It never found anything.. What else should I do?
Is the “Search hidden files and folders” box in your Search function checked?
Are you logged into your computer as Owner, desiree, or someone else?
I’m logged in as Desiree I’m the only account and user on my computer.
Apparently those bad files are in your Temp folder. Do you you know how to access your Temp folder? If not, then try doing a disk cleanup and then restart your computer.
Perhaps the cleanup will find those files and then give you the option to delete them.
Before you try the above, try running a search for .dmp.
Ok I will try these tonight after work and let you know, thankyou!
You’re welcome. :-)
If you find any files, then please leave the results open so that “we” can look at them.
Tried searching for .dmp files, found nothing.. Well it found nothing in my system folder or the hidden folders so I gave up the search because it never stops it just going on and on. No matter what I search actually the “search” never ends it just gets stuck searching but says 0 files found yet still says “searching”. I did disk cleanup nothing unusual popped up had some files to clean up so I did.
Okay, try searching for .xml.
All it found was some itunes file under.xml.
Is that file in the Temp folder?
No it is in my Itunes folder/library
Please try running a search for “Local Settings”.
Ok I found my local settings folder.
Also I looked in the temp folder under my local settings folder, I have two of them and there is nothing in either of them.
There’s nothing in either of your Temp folders?
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