Alright.....im gettin a little angry with my new computer...

[bobby_7 0]

So, almost two months ago, i bought a brand new Dell PC. I recently got a job after graduating college, so i figured i'd get a good one (for what i use it for, im not into gaming), since for the first time in my life, i had the money to spend. I got 4 Gb of RAM, the new Intel Quad Core processor, 500 Gb Hard drive, Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers, etc... the total cost was a little over $1300. Until two weeks ago, i did not have internet, so i didnt really use the computer, just dicked around since it was new. Once i got the internet, i used the regular ole' Internet Explorer, and at least once, each time i used the internet, it would lock up and i would have to literally hold the power button to re-boot. This got annoying very quickly, so i thought maybe it was IE, so i downloaded firefox, thinking this was my problem, and yet it still does it!

granted, i will have iTunes going, and i will usually have 2 - 4 tabs up, but they are nothing major. usually facebook, ssa, maybe crutchfield, but nothing full of flash and taking a lot of bandwith and memory to run them, and i would think that i should have absolutely no problem at all running this. When it locks up, my music will keep playing fine, and act like firefox locked up, but when i hit Ctrl + Alt + Del, the monitor goes into power save (it auto detects an input) and my music locks up too, and makes that horrible noise.

am i really overloading the computer, or is this some kind of problem??

p.s. please, no comments about how i shouldn't have bought a dell or any biases. i have been happy with Dell's products and they work fine for what i need them for.

[shizzzon 461]

i am a pc guy so keep in touch with me via pms if i dont answer here in the thread.

I can answer you while i'm at work over my phone via pms to try and get your problem solved as quick as i can.

I havent had pc lockups since win98 but of course i know you dont have that OS, hehe.

Lockups are usually caused by general things but not limited to only these-

CPU usage - your cpu is maxed out at 100% which visually looks like things are locked up... You have a quad core so that can't be it with what little you are doing.

Memory usage - your memory would be maxed out, your virtual memory would also run out, Windows tries to allocate more but since you ran out of virtual memory, the pc locks up... You shouldnt have this problem either since you have 4Gb of RAM.

I think you have a Software or driver issue.

So, how do we resolve this?

You are probably running Vista, correct? Sadly to say, i have warned people against Vista and I, myself, refuse to use it so i can't tell you EXACTLY where to go to change somethings but i can hep you try and find what i am talking about.

I need you to locate a program on your pc called Event Viewer. This keeps tracks of everything including problems.

In windows Xp, this is where it's located-

Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer.

You can also try going to Start, Run, and in there type - eventvwr.msc then press enter.

That is 2 ways to access it.

Once in there, on the left, choose System and look for any red Xs on the right. If you find any, look for them right at around the time your pc locks up. Post those here. Then go to the Applications on the left and look for red Xs on the right around the time your pc locks up and post those problems here.

This will give me a basis on how to fix your problem.

[Jmac 24]

I'm assuming you're using Vista as well, but I'm using Vista and have zero issues.

[shizzzon 461]

I'm pretty sure i helped him fix his problem.

I use recovery as a last resort because i view it as a small reinstall of windows if you know what i mean.

They won't know everything they're gonna lose until they boot up up days or weeks ago..

We found that an ati system driver was causing error codes and then we had a BSOD where it's error code specifically referenced a driver issue which i originally suspected.

So, since he has a Dell and it's new, i told him to remove the driver from device manager and go to ATI's website, not Dell's and retrieve your video driver from them. I always use the manufacturer's drivers, there's only about 100 extra updates for your card compared to the company who built the computer...

Turns out, Dell had the wrong driver installed in his system.

I can't remember exactly what the exact name of it was but his card was a PRO version and Dell only had the standard driver version in there. He hasn't had any problems since with that.

[Jmac 24]

I'm pretty sure i helped him fix his problem.

I use recovery as a last resort because i view it as a small reinstall of windows if you know what i mean.

They won't know everything they're gonna lose until they boot up up days or weeks ago..

We found that an ati system driver was causing error codes and then we had a BSOD where it's error code specifically referenced a driver issue which i originally suspected.

So, since he has a Dell and it's new, i told him to remove the driver from device manager and go to ATI's website, not Dell's and retrieve your video driver from them. I always use the manufacturer's drivers, there's only about 100 extra updates for your card compared to the company who built the computer...

Turns out, Dell had the wrong driver installed in his system.

I can't remember exactly what the exact name of it was but his card was a PRO version and Dell only had the standard driver version in there. He hasn't had any problems since with that.

Probably the HD 2600 Pro ...