Computer Freezes

[E4xtraordinary]

Here is something I never said before!!! I use Windows XP. My system has been pretty stable lately but for some unknown reason a few weeks ago my computer would not shutdown. It would hang on the Windows is shutting down bit... As I was ready to reinstall everything - I tend to be radical like this! It turns out I had one of my hard disk faulty. I deleted the partition and since then I am not using it, but it is still in computer management. after that PC shutdown fine.

I don't know if this is related with the above, but since then, once a while, my PC completely freeze. It sometimes happens within fifteen minutes, or sometimes after 15 hours. Everything stops. I cannot move the mouse, no CTRL-ALT-Delete or anything. I reset it and it starts perfectly until the next freeze. I haven't installed anything lately. It doesn't seem to be related to any program or any state of the PC. Sometimes it happens while I am doing quite a lot from the CPU and memory, other time it has been iddle for an hour! But in between freezes, my PC works perfectly fine as usual.

I cannot assess if it hardware or software based... Any ideas?

[fredered]

to rule out the hard disc unplug it then at least you know that is not the cause -which i doubt
try running things like prime to see if you get errors - i dont know much about these programs so hopefully someone else would be able to comment

[E4xtraordinary]

After writting the post I did unplugg the disk just to be sure, since it didn't seem to froze. I was about to write a post to say that everything was OK when the computer froze again. However this time after a few minutes, it restarted itself. Showing me a blue screen of death! I didn't have time to read as the pc restarted right away, but it did mention something about ann error in the kernel, the rest I didn't have time to catch...

[d3fiant]

bsod are so vague they r practically useless, u can turn off the autorestart via control panel>system to get the chance to read the full message but its not always worth it. I would run a registry util such as registry mechanic to remove any spurious strings and also defrag the other drives and check for errors. Another suggestion is to run a full HD scan but thats gonna take a while

[E4xtraordinary]

Than you for all our help. Will try the registry util and defrag my drives. Maybe the last restart wasn't related as it was different from the previous one and seem so far only to have happen once. THe faulty hard disk being disabled I hope it was the real issue.

Once again guys, I am pretty new to Hexus and I am so impress with the forum, kep up the good work.

E.