i am on a brand new computer.. everything works great but the comp keeps freezing on me and i can't figure out why.. it happens frequently and seems to happen especially when i use the cd drives, either of the two i have on here.. i can't figure it out and don't know what to check or where to start...

it freezes completely and i can't even do alt, cntrl, del.. it will not even restart when i press the power off button.. i have to reset the surge protector, cutting power off completely to get it to go off..

any ideas?

Is your computer built by a company, or homemade? What are the specs..

Right now, it sounds like cheap ram.

it is homemade, the same comp i was talking about in my last thread..

-Antec Performance II SX1040BII SOHO File Server
-Genuine Intel Motherboard with integrated ethernet, graphics, and sound
-Pentium 4 processor running at 3.07 GHz complete with hyperthreading technology, 533 MHz bus speed and 512 KB advanced transfer cache
-1.024 GB Zerus DDR Ram
-120 GB Seagate Master hard drive
-80 GB Maxtor Slave hard drive
-16X DVD 48X CD DVD-ROM drive
-52X24X52X CD-RW drive
-TEAC standard floppy drive
-10 USB 2.0 high speed USB ports
-2 firewire ports
-NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128 MB dual processor graphics card
-Creative Labs Sound Blaster 2 Platinum PCI audio card
-ATI TV wonder PCI card (lets me watch cable TV on my comp)
-Logitech optical mouse
-InLand compact keyboard
-KOGI 17" flat-panel monitor

i doubt it is the RAM, because it seems to happen only when i am running any of the CD-ROM drives..

try removing 1 of the cdrom drives ,see what happens and if no change try the other one .

What are your DMA settings in the BIOS and under Windows? How about disconnect settings? The wrong IDE buss settings can give the OS fits.

how do i check the bios thing? what am i looking for? and how do i fix it if that is the problem?

I have the same problem, and i really need help. This first occured quite awhile ago on my pioneer DVD rom, it made my windows constantly freeze for a second or two every 7 seconds after the DVD rom had loaded something. After awhile it just started crashing my comp. I formatted and it fixed it, but its back. And after my DVD rom started doing it yesterday, my CD burner has also started. For some reason, i think that it may be involved in the process by which windows does -something- (It asks you to choose what it should do) when you enter a disc into the drive. But i doubt this because i cant have asked it to do something it cant do. Another thing is that i doubt it is the hardware, because i formatted my HDD with windows on it last time this happened and it fixed it, until now.
Please Help.

~ Disgrunteled Windows User.

i wish i could be of more help.. i couldn't get the prob fixed, but then when i moved i had to of course shut everything down.. when i set the comp up again and turned it on, it would not start up past the blue windows intro screen.. it wouldn't make it to the "welcome" page.. i ended up having to boot from the xp disk and running it through repair mode, just so i could even start up and get to my desktop.. well, i dunno what was wrong that caused my initial problem, but when i ran repair it fixed it.. i have had zero freezes and my drives work perfectly now..

i would consider doing what i did and booting from the xp disk and running the repair mode to fix whatever is wrong.. the best part about the repair mode is that it doesn't format anything, doesn't change your settings or desktop at all.. all your programs will still be there, everything just as you left it only hopefully it will be working the way it should..

it's worth a shot.. sorry i can't be of more help..