[underground]

I have an intermittent problem, in that on an old Sempron box, every now and than things just freeze, to some extent. Background processes seem to continue for some time whilst the interaction ewth the UI becomes mouse only- alt+tab and CTRL+ALT+DEL do nowt, tabs are not switchable etc. Eventually clicked windows reappear but the system is just knacked and needs a reset.

Clearly the system is workingbut something in it is faulty. Any ideas how to analyse the constituent components (easily, while they're in the case) to check for lack of integrity etc.?

[Bubba]

I have a similar problem at the moment but it's something to do with RAM rather than a component.

Check everything is seated properly and see if there's a "fail safe" settings in BIOS. If still problems then take any cards out and put them in 1 at a time until the problem is found.

[Jim]

use memtest86 3.3 to test your memory

http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

unzip, burn the iso to cd, boot from the cd the test will then run, will take about an hour or so.
will give you a good idea if there is anything wrong with your memory

[underground]

Cheers Jim. Said the memory is fine, and the only pci card i have in is the soundcard and that doesn't make a difference....

Gonna have a bash with Hot CPU test tonight...

[Jim]

The best thing to do, is remove all the components including the motherboard, get a small paint brush and thoroughly clean the dust off everything, reseat the CPU, heatsink and memory, and if you have any contact cleaner spray, spray the back of the motherboard. (you should do this every couple of years anyway)
If this doesn't fix it, try reinstalling windows.
If that doesn't fix it try a program like sisoft sandra (available at all good p2p sites) to analyse your system

as an aside, I have a couple of old pentium4 boxes (I think one is 2.0 and the other is 2.4) with about 512kb memory and onboard graphic for about £50 each if anyone is intrested