mouldy wrote:And hey your current computer that freezes, might just need cleaning and heatsink reseated with new thermal goo. Or, might have a wonky stick of RAM???
Bad system RAM will usually give you the hardware equivalent of a BSOD, or an instant reboot with no error message at all. Bad mainboard will sometimes do this too.
Freezing after running for a while with the interval getting shorter and shorter is usually overheating CPU. Usually this is due to a sick/clogged fan, but anyway: if you reseat,
use as little goo as possible. What is seldom understood:
Thermal goo is an INSULATOR -- its function is to
exclude air, which is an even better insulator. So the more you use beyond what it takes to get a clean fit with the heatsink, the hotter the CPU will run. The ideal is NO goo and a perfect fit, which is why metal crush pads are a way better idea. (If you used enough goo that drying out created air gaps, you used WAAAAAAY too much. And brand doesn't matter much, so long as it's not a stiff paste; vegemite and toothpaste have been tested to work just as well as the pricey silver stuff, at least in the short term. I wouldn't recommend 'em as a permanent fix, if only cuz they do dry out and shrink.)
Freezing randomly, mixed with long stalls, if you have spinning rust is usually hard drive failing. It may happen more often when the system is hot. Run, do not walk, to make a backup, because death is near.
Freezing with wonky video is bad video RAM.
Randomly playing dead is usually the power supply; may just be overloaded, not sick.
If you're really cheap, er, I mean thrifty, check around for business discards... I just got 3 Optiplex 9010 desktops (i7 CPU) and a Poweredge server for free, all 100% perfect, because they're not worth business' bother to hawk on eBay.