Computer keeps crashing

[kennetht04]

Every night for the last three nights my computer has crashed. It starts with everything freezing, and then my monitor disconnects and shows no signal, but the computer is still running. To fix it I have to turn my computer off and then turn the power off via the switch at the back. How do I determine what the problem is? Could it be the PSU? I'll happily upgrade it if that's the case, but I don't want to go around wasting money.

Appreciate all advice. Thanks

 

[thx1138v2]

The problem could lie just about anywhere. The first thing to do is power it off, disconnect the power, open the case, blow all the dust out, clean all fans, heatsinks and air ports/vents where cooling air enters and exits. Then unseat and reseat all bus cards, ram sticks, and power connectors - mobo, disk drives, card power connectors, etc. Just a general preventive maintenance kind of routine.

Also note if it is at the same time every night and what you are doing at the time. If it does occur at the same time every night, look in Scheduled Tasks to see if anything is triggered at that time.

How old is the system? Did you build it yourself or buy a prebuilt system? Include full specifications with any further posts.

 

[kennetht04]

The problem could lie just about anywhere. The first thing to do is power it off, disconnect the power, open the case, blow all the dust out, clean all fans, heatsinks and air ports/vents where cooling air enters and exits. Then unseat and reseat all bus cards, ram sticks, and power connectors - mobo, disk drives, card power connectors, etc. Just a general preventive maintenance kind of routine.

Also note if it is at the same time every night and what you are doing at the time. If it does occur at the same time every night, look in Scheduled Tasks to see if anything is triggered at that time.

How old is the system? Did you build it yourself or buy a prebuilt system? Include full specifications with any further posts.

Hi. It doesn't happen at the same time every night, just at night time the last few days. The system is about 18 months old. I've got a new problem now where the computer won't even start up, so I'm going to try the preventive maintenance you suggested. Thanks for the reply.