Member Avatar for rttlsnake

I have a computer that started freezing after a few minutes from being turned on. The OS is Vista. I have tried reinstalling Vista as well as XP on both the original hard drive and a new hard drive. During installation of both OS's it froze. I would retry and retry and eventually get the install complete but then would freeze when it was started. The CPU fan and power supply seem to be working just fine. Any other ideas I could try? Could the motherboard be bad? Any other suggestions would be great!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by miruton

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Summary from (freezes a few minutes after power-on and even during fresh OS installs) points strongly to hardware rather than OS. Suggestions already posted by (cleaning/heatsink) and (video card) and the successful fix described by (loose heatsink) are all plausible. The best approach is a short, methodical isolation sequence so the failing component can be identified without guessing.

Recommended isolation and troubleshooting steps:

  1. Do a quick visual check of the motherboard for bulging or leaking capacitors, scorch marks, or loose connectors.
  2. Perform a minimal boot: motherboard + CPU + one RAM stick (try each stick and each slot) + GPU only if no integrated video. Remove all drives, cards and USB devices.
  3. Reseat the CPU cooler properly: power down, unplug, remove cooler, clean old compound with isopropyl alcohol, apply proper thermal paste (pea-size or thin spread), and torque the retention evenly. Do not use glue or adhesives.
  4. Run MemTest86 (bootable) for several passes to rule out RAM faults. Test each stick solo.
  5. Boot a Linux live USB or other external OS to see if freezing is OS-independent. Freezes during a live session point strongly to hardware.
  6. Swap or test the PSU if voltages look unstable or if a known-good unit is available.
  7. If a discrete GPU is fitted, test with a different card or use onboard video. Overheating or failing GPUs can freeze a display without rebooting.
  8. Reset CMOS and check BIOS/health monitoring for temperatures and voltages. Avoid BIOS updates while the system is unstable.

If these steps don’t isolate the fault, bench-testing with known-good spare parts (PSU, RAM, GPU, or another motherboard) is the next logical move. Start with visual and cooler/thermal checks first—those are inexpensive and often fix the symptom described.

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Member Avatar for sittas87

when last did you apply some grease to your cpu.also blow out your machine to remove dust
??

Member Avatar for willcomp

If display freezes rather than blank screen or reboot, problem is likely caused by video card. Overheating of video card will produce those symptoms (frozen display).

Member Avatar for miruton

I had a similar problem and after I checked my cpu I found the aluminum cooling fin was not completely touching the chip. So I resecurred it better and turned on the computer and now it doesn't freeze up. I think I shoud buy some of that special glue that goes in between the cooling fin and the processor.

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