PC Randomly Locking Up

[Gotejjeken]

Over the past couple months or so, my PC will randomly lock up while I am using it (playing a game, surfing the internet, etc.). If I shut it down and restart it right away, the PC will sometimes lock up during boot, however if I shut it down and leave it for a few minutes then return the PC will start up again and work fine for a while.

I've checked the CPU temperature (Intel Q6600 Quad running at 42C idle), the GPU temperature (NVIDIA 8800GTX running at 55C idle), and they both check out as fine to me. I checked to see if my RAM was maxing out for some reason, and at idle I am only using 41% of it (~2 GB of 4GB). I scanned both of my HDD's and one of them the WD Data Lifeguard tools found bad sectors on (unrecoverable ones at that..or so they say), however if I leave this drive unplugged my computer still randomly locks up.

My OS is Windows Vista x64 Home Premium, and I haven't had a problem with it thus far, although sometimes it hogs more memory than I would like. I've tried everything I can think of...I even suspected the PSU at one point, however it is a 700W PSU and shouldn't be anywhere near maxed out when I'm surfing the internet.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[strategic]

You should probably test your memory to make sure it isn't corrupt.
http://www.memtest.org/
Are you keeping your computer up-to-date with the Microsoft updates?
Maybe you can folloow through teh 8-step virus removal procedure to make sure you don't have malware on your system.

 

[Gotejjeken]

I tried creating a bootable memtest .iso for windows and running it, however it doesn't seem to function properly for me. If I select the regular 'use single core' option the memory test will start, however it will run for a few seconds then my PC will reboot. If I use the 'use multiple cores (experimental)' option the memtest does not start.

Also, I download the updates when Windows warns me I have new ones, so I think I'm good on that front. As far as viruses go, I scan every night with AVG, however I could follow through the 8 steps just to be sure.

EDIT: I think I may have had an old version of memtest, going to try the one on the link posted now.

 

[Gotejjeken]

Alright, I was successfully able to run memtest with no errors (I let it do roughly 1.5 passes). Another issue I forgot to mention before is when the computer starts to lock up, if you try to minimize a window it will minimize but it will turn all black before it does. Could that be a graphics card issue? I'm not entierly sure if the graphics card would cause the PC to lock up entirely though. I did notice when the computer is totally locked up I can still move the mouse around but cannot click anything.

 

[strategic]

For starteers, the guys here recommend 7 passes minimum for the memtest. If you don't remove the multiple sticks (do one-at-a-time) I would go more than 7 passes.
Here's another you can use... https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic62524.html
Aside from the 8-step, here is another prescription to make sure your HDD is ok,
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
There is a chance it could be your graphics card, it would be nice to have a BSOD to help diagnose it.

 

[Gotejjeken]

I let memtest run for 13 passes (around 10 hours overnight) with no errors. I checked my HDD's and my WD Raptor is the only one with known bad sectors on it (again according to WD Lifeguard as I couldn't test it with the Seagate program as the drive is not Seagate). What's frustrating is there is never a BSOD to go along with the freezing, the PC will just lock up everything except the mouse most times, unless I am playing a game, then it locks up everything but the sound usually.

 

[Gotejjeken]

Is there a recommended way to test your motherboard? I've noticed a lot of freezing during boot (before the HDD is accessed to load windows), and I was thinking if one of the motherboard traces is damaged it could cause other parts to malfunction. I seriously hope this is not the case, although it could explain some of my inconsistencies.

 

[Gotejjeken]

I finally received a BSOD:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

nvstor64.sys - Address FFFFFA60007CA59C base at FFFFFA60007BE000, Datestamp 479aa282

STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x0000000000000020, 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000, 0x00000000479aa82)

Before this happened I was doing some pixel art in Graphics Gale. The PC had frozen once before with no BSOD, so I restarted it and started my work again. Then it threw a BSOD out of nowhere...this thing is really starting to frustrate me.

EDIT: I recently upgraded my graphics card drivers so I could play the Batman demo; I just looked at the 'nvstor64' part and realized my graphics card apparently threw the BSOD. So I guess I'm down to either a bad graphics card or a bad processor?