Alright, I’ve got a computer problem. And as I’m a CS major, this is something of an embarrasment.
The problem: Occaisionally, if I leave my computer on for a little while, it starts behaving funny. Programs like Word and .NET and sometimes even Explorer will freeze on startup and not respond. In addition, when this is happening, Task Manager refuses to load, and when I restart, I am told that Task Manager is not responding. But, after I reboot, everything is fine, for a while. I’ve run Spybot and Ad-Aware, and found nothing. I’ve got Zonealarm running, and nothing’s tried to dial out. There is nothing untoward in my task list (that I can tell) and nothing new in my startups folder. At this point, I’m wondering if it’s a hardware problem. I’d assume this but for the fact that rebooting fixes it. Has anyone got a clue?
This sounds like, in order of probability 1) an overheating issue or 2) a bad RAM issue. Make sure the CPU fan is running, and that the heatsink is firmly attached. Remove it, scrape both it and the processor clean, reapply a layer of heatsink compound and reseat if in doubt. Run it with the case open and see if the trouble goes away or becomes less frequent. If none of that does any good, suspect bad RAM.
I’ve checked my CPU temperature, plus I just recently changed the CPU fan. Is there any way I can check the RAM?
There’s a couple freeware RAM diagnostic utilities here, but I cannot vouch for their effectiveness. I personally recommend RAM Stress Test Pro 2 (Ok, technically, I recommend the original version, which is now discontinued. The new version is from the same people.)