- Oct 1, 2015
- 3
- 0
- 10,510
I have a 7 year old Gateway desktop which has served me well (Q6700). A couple of months ago it started freezing occasionally. It would accept no input and the wireless adapter was not functioning. I would have to do a hard reboot.
In the beginning I thought it would not wake up from sleep. Luckily it did not occur very often so my troubleshooting had approximately 6 weeks to progress. With time it began to occur more frequently. When it started freezing while I was using it the display would be there but suddenly frozen and I could hear the hard drive running very rhythmically for a minute or two after a freeze. I did virus scans, checked settings, ran chkdsk and scannow, changed the bios battery, changed mouse and keyboard, removed an old wireless adapter, reset memory, checked motherboard connections, and then started on blue screen analysis using bluescreenview. I never got a blue screen and it would only log a small percentage of the freezes. The blue screen log did not make a lot of sense as there would be different processes responsible for different crashes.
To make a long story short, in a last ditch effort before discarding the computer I replaced the power supply. It's been 4 days now with no freezes so I am confident the problem is solved. I just wanted to share this with the world in hopes it helps someone else.
My bios battery still had 3.035 volts after 7 years. Granted my computer has spent the vast majority of it's life asleep so the battery wasn't being drained.
Note: I have had very bad luck with Best Buy components and I recommend you stay away. The new power supply smells like ozone to me which can't be good. Best Buy Insignia brand (not a lot of options on a Sunday).
WAIT! I WAS WRONG! My computer went 4 days without freezing and then during the night after I created this post it froze. $%&@! I guess it's bad karma to tell the world your problem has been solved. Now I suspect the power in my house (original wiring and built in 1953) or my surge protector, which I believe I bought in 1982. It seems to freeze less often with the new power supply, which would indicate a power problem, but I suppose time will tell.
In the beginning I thought it would not wake up from sleep. Luckily it did not occur very often so my troubleshooting had approximately 6 weeks to progress. With time it began to occur more frequently. When it started freezing while I was using it the display would be there but suddenly frozen and I could hear the hard drive running very rhythmically for a minute or two after a freeze. I did virus scans, checked settings, ran chkdsk and scannow, changed the bios battery, changed mouse and keyboard, removed an old wireless adapter, reset memory, checked motherboard connections, and then started on blue screen analysis using bluescreenview. I never got a blue screen and it would only log a small percentage of the freezes. The blue screen log did not make a lot of sense as there would be different processes responsible for different crashes.
To make a long story short, in a last ditch effort before discarding the computer I replaced the power supply. It's been 4 days now with no freezes so I am confident the problem is solved. I just wanted to share this with the world in hopes it helps someone else.
My bios battery still had 3.035 volts after 7 years. Granted my computer has spent the vast majority of it's life asleep so the battery wasn't being drained.
Note: I have had very bad luck with Best Buy components and I recommend you stay away. The new power supply smells like ozone to me which can't be good. Best Buy Insignia brand (not a lot of options on a Sunday).
WAIT! I WAS WRONG! My computer went 4 days without freezing and then during the night after I created this post it froze. $%&@! I guess it's bad karma to tell the world your problem has been solved. Now I suspect the power in my house (original wiring and built in 1953) or my surge protector, which I believe I bought in 1982. It seems to freeze less often with the new power supply, which would indicate a power problem, but I suppose time will tell.
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