hi there,

I have never had this problem with my computer. For the past couple days, it has been crashing either in the middle of a task or just out of the blue. When it crashes, 50% of the time it will restart back to normal and then perhaps crash again after about 10 minutes or so. The other 50% it will stay in the bios/memory screen (the first screen that comes up when you start the computer) and it will freeze. There is no warning and no error report. I don't nkow what it could be. I have just installed a webcam and mobile phone software but it had been playing up before then.

Please help.

Thanks

Ron

Google and get memtest and run it for atleast 7 passed, any errors at all and it means you have bad ram that needs to be replaced.

thanks Rik,

unfortunately i haven't been able to get through a whole memtest without the computer crashing. Every so often the internal speaker will make a beep sound, which it have never done before. This is very infrequent but definitely not normal. I ran 2 memtests simultaneously for about an hour (got through about 130% on one and about 75% on the other) then the computer automatically restarted. On startup a window appears asking whether i'd like to install a picture gallery of some sort ??

Recently installed Skype. Wondering if maybe this has something to do with it ??

Cheers.

Ron

When users give no system information whatsoever, it's difficult to impossible to troubleshoot a problem. You could be running windows XP with 64MB RAM- that would crash you! Or the system requirements for Skype aren't met by your system! Or you may be running Win 98 and used up our hard drive 'and' don't have enough RAM. Do you understand?

Mystery diagnosing on a computer isn't the best way to go.

I am running a P4 3.4GHz, 2Gig Ram, 160Gig HD, Windows XP. Computer has about 64Gig free on the hard drive.

And yes I understand, I've had computers for the past 20 yrs. No need to be a tool about it. Being a tool isn't the best way to go. Do you understand?

There is no need to be rude about what I said and I don't understand the "tool" reference. Asking if you understood was a way of getting you to give your system information. If indeed you have had computers 'for 30 years', then you should know the value of having this information up front.

You have several options:
1. Uninstall Skype and see if this resolves the problem,
2. Do a system Restore and see if this resolves the problem.
3. Use the Event viewer to see if there are Error Events at the time the system crashes.
4. Cut down on the multi-tasking and see if this resolves the problem.

You will also need to be careful of how much you're adding to your hard drive as you only have 25% of it free.