computer freezing

June 27, 2005 11:27 AM

My computer freezes around once a day. There is an audio loop and I have to reset it. How can I diagnose and fix this?
posted by donth to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Well, uh, what kind of computer is it? What are you doing when it freezes? Come on, help us help you.
posted by trevyn at 11:39 AM on June 27, 2005

Do you have a Soundblaster Audigy?
posted by socratic at 11:54 AM on June 27, 2005

er, creativelabs audigy... whatever... damnit.
posted by socratic at 11:54 AM on June 27, 2005

Mac? PC? Atari?
posted by Jairus at 12:42 PM on June 27, 2005

PC, pentium 4, freezes randomly (often when I'm away from it), no audigy
posted by donth at 2:28 PM on June 27, 2005

The looping audio is a symptom, not a cause. In some circumstances sound cards will loop their playback buffer if the appliaction doesn't stop it / load new sound into the buffer.

Donth, it could be almost anything. If it were my machine I'd first disable any background apps I don't need, then try upgrading sound and video drivers, and if that failed I'd reinstall the whole machine.
posted by Nelson at 4:20 PM on June 27, 2005

The first thing I'd do is check my CPU temperature, and run a RAM testing utility from a boot CD.

After you crash next, boot into your BIOS, and take a note of your CPU and MB temperature. What's it sitting at?
posted by Jairus at 6:53 PM on June 27, 2005

I think they asked about the sound card, because they DO cause crashes.
I borrowed one from a friend to test it out, and my computer would randomly crash after that, even if its just sitting at a windows desktop. removed the card and the problem went away.


The other questions would be have you changed anything recently in the computer? installed new ram/programs ect?
also, have you tried running virus and spyware checkers?
posted by Iax at 7:10 PM on June 27, 2005

If anyone's curious: I took the computer into a repair shop and they replaced the motherboard (and they had to replace the SDRAM with DDR). It's worked well so far.
posted by donth at 4:00 PM on July 16, 2005