Computer freezing when idle

[naitolepsyx]

everytime i leave the pc on for about 20 minutes doing nothing except chatting.playing music, the pc freezes but when i play games it won't freeze and i can play for about 4hrs straight without freezing.
im kinda confused
specs:
amd athlon x2 4000+ 2.11 oc'ed to 2.22ghz
corsair 2 gb ram ddr2
asrock alive-nfgvsta
i'm currently using the onboard videocard
maxtor 80gb sata harddrive
dynamo psu 500 (generic)

currently i have no problem with temps
cpu: 40~50 /60 on load
hard disk : 40 ~50

somebody help me please

 

[montyuk]

change your power profile to always on so nothing switches off or powers down...

are you getting bsod or any error messages, or is it just a hard lock and sound repeating itself?

 

[drew455]

if you have it set so your hdd's power down then that could cause problems.

 

[naitolepsyx]

no i'm not having any error messages, it's just the pc suddenly freezes, i can move the mouse sometimes but after that it freezes up..
@drew455 what do u mean by that?

 

[montyuk]

im thinking a problem with the hard drive, possibly a read/write error, do you have a spare you can test with?

if it was ram it would bsod and just die.

 

[55795642]

There are all sorts of processes which kick in when your CPU is idle, from Windows Update (Vista), to other application updaters, to viruses and trojans which try to mask their activity by kicking in during idle times when you are less likely to notice.

Any of these could be the problem. Quite famously, many virii/trojans which try to use an internet connection but cannot for one reason or another (firewall; internet disconnected) will hang because they were not designed to deal gracefully with that situation.

Have you looked in the Event Viewer logs for any indication as to where the problem may lie? Click Start and type 'eventvwr' in the Run box.

 

[naitolepsyx]

nope nothing is listed in the event viewer as if nothing happened just after the freeze
@montyuk i don't have :[

 

[49ers540]

It's AMD. El cheapo El freezo.

 

[demonsparkx]

49er needs to GTFO this thread. if your just a noob with an attitude you dont belong on tom's.