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Question

ACER PC freezing - registry? Hard disk? RAM?

Dec 29, 2014 6:31AM PST

I have had current PC for a couple of years, and it froze every so often out of the box. Don't ask why I didn't return it. I don't know.

Anyway, about the machine:

Model: Acer M5910
Intel Core i5 CPU 650 @3.2GHz
6 GB RAM
running windows 7 Home Premium
Over 100GB free on Hard drive


What have I tried
I've run RAM diagnostics, nothing showed up, but I may have done it wrong...
Removed and reinstalled RAM
cleaned the inside of the case for dust (won't make a difference, but figured I'd mention - thus it's not overheating)
Ran Norton and scoured everything when I had it, ran Avast recently. Nothing


I don't understand what causes the freezing - it occasionally does it when it's not even in use (used to freeze mid screensaver - which was a stock screensaver - until I removed it to try and avoid the freezing)

The entire machine freezes - in that it responds to neither mouse nor keyboard input, nor pressing sleep button on case. However, interestingly, it froze when copying some files and the copy animation kept playing, even though the PC was irresponsive. If there is music playing when it freezes, it immediately changes to a sort of loud Static Buzz...

Any help would be greatly appreciated - ask if you need to know anything else!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
When folk tell me it's not overheating
Dec 29, 2014 6:37AM PST

Well, it's often a lost cause since there are parts of the PC that don't have temperature measurements so they are lost and often get upset as we do the usual work. We start by replacing all heatsink compound and reviewing the machine for things like power supplies that are too close to the edge. That is, if the power draw under load is 300 Watts then we want to see a 600 Watt PSU.

Then we have the machine was defective right out the box. We would be ready to change any part but here's the awful truth. The PC industry failed to make the design easy to troubleshoot without swapping boards or parts. Those new to PC repair question techs that swap boards or call them names such as l10dts or worse.

Sorry that it's still hard to diagnose but it still is.
Bob

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Answer
Sounds to me like a background process...
Dec 29, 2014 9:25PM PST

If this has been happening since day one, it sounds to me like a preinstalled program is causing the problem while running in the background. When the freezing is occuring, open your task manager and look through processes. Find the one that is using up an extreme amount of cpu usage. Google the name of the program to see what it is. If possible, uninstall that program. Problem solved.

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But it's frozen?
Dec 31, 2014 3:13AM PST

I would open the task manager, but it freezes instantly and is irresponsive to any input... I guess the workaround is to have task manager permanently open such that I can see it when the PC freezes...