Kheldarson's PC is locking up

[KabeRinnaul]

Okay, we've been having a lot of issues with Kheldarson's computer lately. It's been running slowly, and a few days ago it froze on the login screen and wouldn't respond to the mouse or keyboard at all. While it was frozen there, something (not sure now if it was a fan or the hard drive) would spin up, run for a minute or two, then stop for about five minutes before repeating. Today, it crashed to a screen of blue and red vertical stripes, and when we tried to reboot it, the windows loading screen froze like this:



It froze on loading two more times like that, including once when the Windows Repair was trying to run. And then we got it to start, but it just froze on a discolored screen like that again.

Advice?

Edit: I was trying to see if I could get any information from the computer itself, and it locked up again. Here's how the latest crash looks:

[prjkt]

That looks like the graphics card has sh*t itself.

Open up the lc and see how much dust is around the heat sinks, use a can of compressed air to clean it up - might be locking up due to over heating. Dos the same to the memory chips and CPU.

If that doesn't work, try replacing the graphics cards and/or testing the ram chips (remove all but one, boot up for a bit, use Pc, then shutdown and rinse/repeat with any other ram chips)

[KabeRinnaul]

That looks like the graphics card has sh*t itself.

Open up the lc and see how much dust is around the heat sinks, use a can of compressed air to clean it up - might be locking up due to over heating. Dos the same to the memory chips and CPU.

If that doesn't work, try replacing the graphics cards and/or testing the ram chips (remove all but one, boot up for a bit, use Pc, then shutdown and rinse/repeat with any other ram chips)

Those were pretty much my guesses - overheating or a dying graphics card. But that last crash happened with the case open, so I don't think it's overheating (though it seemed the fan on the heat sink was spinning pretty slowly, so maybe I'm wrong). It's an onboard video card, too, so not sure if that will be an ongoing problem should we buy a new one.

Either way, it's time for me to head to work, so I'll be trying things out tonight or tomorrow. Thanks, though.

[prjkt]

Case open can sometimes cause more overheating, as the airflow within the case is disrupted...
Does your computer's motherboard have the option of an add-in graphics card?

[Chromatix]

Certain graphics cards are known for failing in exactly this manner. It's a physical fault which is hard to fix, unless you can replace the card.

See if you can get a small Linux boot CD. This one, perhaps. You don't need to install anything from it - just boot it to the console, run "lspci" and take a photo of the results. It should give us a decent idea of what hardware you've got.

[KabeRinnaul]

Does your computer's motherboard have the option of an add-in graphics card?

There's one PCIex16 slot and three smaller ones. I was hoping to pull the graphics card out of my old dead PC and put it in as an easy fix, but my graphics card was a standard PCI and won't fit.

It should give us a decent idea of what hardware you've got.

The onboard card is a Radeon HD 6530D. The sticker is still on the side of the tower. Her computer should be an HP Pavilion P7-1154, but some of the information on the side of the tower doesn't quite match the specs I see for it online.

[Chromatix]

Hum. That complicates matters slightly - the 6530D is actually part of the CPU, so if that's gone bad, the rest of the machine is likely to follow. Is that the graphics system *actually* in use?

[KabeRinnaul]

Hum. That complicates matters slightly - the 6530D is actually part of the CPU, so if that's gone bad, the rest of the machine is likely to follow. Is that the graphics system *actually* in use?

Should be. I don't think there's anything else in there.

[KabeRinnaul]

Best Buy confirmed it's the motherboard going out. So, now to find out if I can just buy a new one myself instead of shipping it to HP.

[KabeRinnaul]

Triple posting, but another question. Kheldarson found the motherboard on this site, but it's not a company I'm familiar with. Anyone else have any experience with them?

http://www.ascendtech.us/hp-aahd3-hb...hd3hbhibi.aspx

[Chromatix]

That looks like it's the right motherboard, at least.

[Ophbalance]

Were it me, I'd just find one on eBay. There's a slew of folks out there that just work on pulled parts for reselling. The first listing I found was $54 and free shipping, so it could save you a few dollars. I'd only do this if the seller has a fairly decent rep, but many of the high volume ones do.