Can a bad power supply cause freeze ups?

[quantummechanic]

My computer randomly freezes up. Sometimes it reboots as well, but mostly it simply freezes up leaving me with no option but to cold reboot with the reset switch.
The mouse, num lock light etc. nothing respond, audio loops.

I took my motherboard for testing. Gigabyte says that it is A ok. I was wondering if a bad power supply could cause this? Or is it some other errant component?

I have seen bad power supplies cause reboots, but can they cause freeze ups?

Another totally unrelated question: How much do you recon is the optimal amount of ram for Windows 7 64 bit. 4 GBs or 6GBs? (Dont use this pc for gaming).

 

[klepto12]

it could be the psu but it might be the ram man. also is the cpu getting to hot? windows 7 64 bit i would say 4gb is the sweet spot but a 6gb system would be great for a core i7 system.

 

[quantummechanic]

The CPU stays cool.

I ran Memtest for 22 passes, so I dont think its the RAM.
Still I will get 2 gigs more and test.

These freeze ups are fairly infrequent. After say 3-4 hours of usage. But the interval is ramdom. Sometimes I have 8+ hours of uptime.

 

[klepto12]

have you tried plugging the computer in to another outlet? if your on a surge protector it could be faulty

 

[SNGX1275]

To answer what was directly asked, absolutely they can, if a component can't get the power it needs bad things are bound to happen. Some components are more flexible on the range of voltages they can accept while others might cause something unexpected to happen. Electronics don't do well with unexpected results.

 

[quantummechanic]

I think I will change my power supply and surge protector.

I used extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp to calculate my power supply need. It comes to 177W [220W if I severly overestimate].
Will a 300W supply be good enough for me?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Get a quality 350-400W supply to have some headroom. The Antec EA380 and Corsair 400CX are among the best choices in that range.