Crash/Boot up Problem

[joeys]

My computer, which I have had for about 4 years, running Win 2000, started crashing recently. It works fine for about 45 minutes, then freezes, and after a few seconds the screen goes black with only a frozen cursor arrow. When I switch it off, the NumLock light on the keyboard stays on. This goes off when I switch it off at the PSU.

If I try to reboot it straight away, it doesn't boot properly. If I leave it for a while and switch it off at the PSU, it boots normally and runs for a short while before freezing again.

I think this is a hardware problem, possibly overheating somewhere. Does anyone have a clue of what I should do to fix it? I have run virus checks, which have found nothing. I don't think it is an OS problem as it runs okay from cold. Strangely, it does not beep anymore when booting up.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Suspishio]

If the numlock stays on, it usually means that the PC has gone into Standby mode and there's a power setting in control panel to regulate this.

I don't know why it goes into standby but that's what I reckon it's doing.

[cguan_77]

yup, suspishio maybe right double check your settings maybe you just set the system to either hibernate or standby mode, if you suspect that it is a hardware problem then double check your cpu fan and check also if there's enough thermal compound on your heatsink...if still the same try using another PSU..