Computer crashes and freezes

My computer crashes and says: "collecting data for crash dump" and counts to a hundred and then turns off altogether. Sometimes instead, it just freezes. When I turn it back on a lot of times I have to restart it multiple times before i can boot it up without a freeze. Can someone please help?

Hi there,

Could you please attach the latest 3-4 mini dump files to your next post.

They can be found in

Start > My Computer > Local Disk C: > Windows > Minidump

Someone will be able to debug them for you

hmm, it says I don't have permission to open the file, even though I'm on the administrator log in.

Can you access it via safemode?

let me check

It's not giving me the option to start in safemode

Sorry, I should have explained it a bit better.

When your machine is booting up, tap F8 repeatedly and it should direct you to a black screen with white writing. It should have multiple options, including three options for Safemode. You want the first option of just 'Safemode'

The file isn't even there anymore. Hmm. Should I just post it the next time it happens?

okay, it happened again, and I tried to open the file in safe mode, but I couldn't. My computer also doesn't recognize the format it's in.

Oh by the way, this was happening when my computer was using vista, and then I switched to windows 7 and it's still happening.

Ok, need a bit more info on the crash.

When does this crash happen?

Is there anything in eventviewer. To get there

Start > Run > Type eventvwr > System. See if there are any recent Red Errors and post the details here

It usually crashes while I'm playing World of Warcraft, but it's crashed once or twice while I wasn't

Hi subzero20001,

Could you give us your complete system specs

I'm sorry, I'm incredibly bad when it comes to computers, what do you mean by system specs? haha.

No problem. Just list what your hardware is. For example, my system specs are

Cpu - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
RAM - G-Skill 2GB
PSU - Antec 800W
Graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT
Motherboard - Asus P5Q
OS - Windows XP Pro

Or, if it is not custom made or doesn't list these specifically. Then just let me know what brand and model your machine is

nice computer lol

Graphics card needs updating and possibly more RAM.

Sadly I cannot afford because I have little things to pay like rent, power and food.

Nothing important

It doesn't it's an HP Pavillion Media Center mB 100n TV PC, sorry it crashed while I was typing this.

and I have a graphics card that I got. But that was installed a while before this started, so it's probably not the problem.

I'd suggest testing your video RAM as a start. I wouldn't rule it out just now.

Download this tool here, and run it. Its pretty straight forward and only takes around an hour or so