The Excorcism of Z's PC

Ztalker · 04-21-2010, 09:22 AM

Good afternoon people of LF.

The reason I'm starting this thread is fairly simple...there are some expert tech guys around these forums and my friends can't fix this. I hope one of you guys/girls can...

The problems is as follows;
-At random times, my computer totally freezes. I can move the mouse but nothing works. It even happens when I only have Office and Firefox on.
-After a short (or long) while, it starts again.
-This started happening after I installed a new videocard en formatted my C partition(The D partition has some schoolstuff on it) of my HD.
-I thought it had something to do with Mediaplayer of Winamp having to load files from the other partition, but it's running fine right now.
-What am I supposed to do? A guildie recommended getting a second HD, and stop using partitions.

Few details:
-OS: Spawn of the Devil; Vista 32 bit
-3 Gigs of Ram
-ATi Radeon HD 4870 Video card

Please help...it's not very comfortable to work for school and have your computer go spooky on you...

Thanks in advance,

~Z

Astrotoy7 · 04-21-2010, 09:55 AM

I heard there's a tech forum around here just for such a purpose

*points at sig*

when you installed your new video card, did you remove previous drivers first and install the latest version of catalyst?

mtfbwya

**ChAiNz.2da** · 04-21-2010, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astrotoy7

I heard there's a tech forum around here just for such a purpose

*points at sig*

when you installed your new video card, did you remove previous drivers first and install the latest version of catalyst?

mtfbwya

Beat you to it neener neener

Astrotoy7 · 04-21-2010, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChAiNz.2da

Beat you to it neener neener

I have no edit powerz at ahto chainz so there was no competition to start with!

mtfbwya

Ztalker · 04-22-2010, 10:04 AM

Sorry guys, I didn't even knew we had a tech forum...never had issues with my PC either...

Thanks for moving it

**Negative Sun** · 04-22-2010, 04:05 PM

Yes it definitely sounds like a driver issue to me...

Follow Astro's advice and if that doesn't help I would try and do a system restore to a point where your PC was working fine, uninstall all the current drivers, Clean your registry with a program like CCleaner (Clicky) and install the most up to date drivers for the Graphics Card.

Also, what Graphics Card did you have before that? Did you check to make sure your Power Supply can handle this new one?

Good luck

Q · 04-22-2010, 04:05 PM

I take it that the C partition that you formatted is the boot (OS) partition? If so, then you basically reinstalled Windows when you installed the new graphics card, so there shouldn't be any conflicts with leftover driver files, right? That's what I would have done, too, if my previous card had been an nVidia model. It wouldn't have been necessary had your previous card also been an ATI model.

Have you gotten any BSODs (Blue Screens Of Death)?
Have you checked the new card's operating temperature?
Have you tried re-seating the card after clearing the PCIe slot of any dust?