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Computer running slow and locking up

Hi, I am working on a friends computer and the computer is functioning really slow. Not to mention the computer will just lock up and you have to reboot. Now the person they had fix their computer orignally replaced thier hard drive, put more ram in and thats about it. Well the retard didnt put any fans in the computer so the only fans where the one on the CPU and the one in the power supply. The computer ran this way for about a year and started having these problems. I tryed putting a new harddrive in the computer and tryed formatting it and it only got so far and stopped. Ohh sorry let me back up a bit and let you know I did try anti virus and things like that. I even tryed a new ribbon cable between the hard drive and the mother board and that didnt work. So Im kinda at a loss and I am wondering if any one has had this problem or if any one has any ideas on what the fix for the problem could be or what I should do to go about trouble shooting this one.

Thank you, RS

Reply to
rstampsls
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Sorry as my beautiful Girlfriend just pointed out, its a crappy Gateway.

Reply to
rstampsls

Adding RAM memory does not usually require any additional fans/cooling. It is difficult to diagnose this remotely from your description, but if you have eliminated viruses, then I'd strongly suspect adware/spyware. Try downloading the latest Adaware or Spybot Search and Destroy and run a full diagnostic. Also try deleting any unneeded files using the disk utility and then run scandisk and defrag afterward. Good luck.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Shuman

Yes but there was no fan and the hard drive gets really hot. Also adaware or spyware would not cause a computer to not be able to format a harddrive.

Bob Shuman wrote:

Reply to
rstampsls

When the unit is acting up, what temperature does the bios setup screen say the CPU is at? What speed are the fans running, the bios setup screen may also show this?

Reply to
dkuhajda

If you already know the problem, why are you asking?

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Reply to
CJT

Short of replacing everything how do i know the problem?

CJT wrote:

Reply to
rstampsls

You seem already to have concluded the hard drive has overheated.

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Reply to
CJT

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

What's "really hot"? AFAIK,HDs should not get "really hot".

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Jim Yanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

what OS are you using? what is the speed of the processor? what is the make of tha HDD? How old is this computer?

furnish me with these details n maybe i could give you something that would work!

Reply to
LiveWire

Check CPU is BIOS detected at it's correct speed, and the speed of the RAM is correct for the motherboard. You can get a free utility 'cpu-z' from

formatting link
to determine this, and gateway's web site info should give you the spec's of your motherboard.

If correct, I'd blame the CPU fan/heatsink. May be running slowly, or the heatsink is no longer making much contact with the CPU, as the thermal paste has fallen off. Take it off (carefully), clean and remount it with a small bit of thermal paste.

Modern CPU's, if run hot, will run down their internal clock architecture to save damage - this causes a very slow running machine.

If your hard drive feels hot, it would not hurt to add a fan. The primary cause of total hard drive failure is excessive heat, and a lot of manufacturers don't pay much attention to this as they should.

-- Adrian C

Reply to
Adrian C

Hi,

With a brand new hard drive installed the overheating issue with the old hard drive has been bypassed, forget about it, pretend it didn't happen.

When you formatted the new hard drive what error did it give you?

When the computer locks up do you hear any clicks, squeaks, beeps, clanks, or clunks? Does it give any error messages?

When I build/modify systems I put a fan blowing in at the bottom front and one blowing out at the top rear, above the power supply if possible or as close to the CPU as possible or there isn't any room above the power supply.

An excellent place for online computer help is:

formatting link

Later,

-Landon

Reply to
lj_robins

Have you got an old hd that you can install a FRESH copy of windows on? If so try this and see how the computer acts. By what your saying you have copied your partition from your old drive to the new, and have just transfered your corupt file from one drive to the next let me know

Reply to
David Naylor

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