Win Xp Hanging Freezing

i am having a problem with windows xp
it is crashing quite often, almost regularly
i happens whether or not music is playing
so far it mostly happens in dos mode
but it has happened i think(cant remember too well) if it has

happened in windows environment.
if music is playing it just freezes
no error reports also and no scandisk on startup


my config is

amd athlon xp 2000+
512 mb ram
nvidia geforce 4 mx 440 ( nvidia nforce platform drivers 33.3
creative sound blaster live 5.1 de
logitech freedom wireless keboard and wireless optical mouse(

mouse ware version 9.79 and itouch version 2.20)
lg dvd rom drive
lg cd rewriter
lg 900b monitor
creative inspire 5.1 5200 speakers
Pinnacle pctv tv tuner card


anything else i need yo add
i have all the latest updates from windows site, except two nvidia
drivers, .net framework and and microsoft tablet viewer.

the latest programs i installed(didnt have before i put these)
webcopier 3.6

do i need to tell u more please help this is messing up alot of my

work

 

is it automatically rebooting or does it lock up so you have to power it off yourself

 

have to power off totally , even ctrl alt del doesnt work
either soft off by pressing power button for 4 seconds or press rest

 

are you getting alot of blue screens of death or just freezing?

 

no blue screen death just straight freezing permanent image of whatever i am doing

 

i would try reseating the RAM and video card and sound card.. pull 'em out and put them back in.. just make sure the comp is off and unplugged

if that doesn't help I would try the remove everything from inside the comp except video card and see which piece of hardware causes the problem method.

Just boot up with only the vid card installed and see if the comp runs good. If it does turn off and install the sound card. See if the problem comes back. if it does the problem is the sound card.

 

is there any info in your event viewer

control panel--administrative tools--event viewer


have a look in system or application for any possible errors

 

Definatley reseat. I had a simelar problem because my video card was wrongly seated due to the case being bent, couldnt work it out for months.

 

yup.. one time I was having all sorts of problems with my comp and I reseated the RAM and all problems fixed.

 

well i am going to wait a while before removing and reseating cause i aint done that before and bit scared but will do later if need be
for now waht i did was i opened up the case, set the vacuum cleaner to blow and blew out all the dust from inside especially from all the fansa smps , cpu and a third fan
now my comp is running open cased no prob i even left it open and left it on with music running for 3 hrs and came back and saw no prob,
for now i am guessing it was over heating or some dust somewhere may have caused a prob
will let u know in a couple of days
thanks alot guys

 

ok glad it seems to be working m8

dont forget to let us know how it all works out

 

Oh and if you find a weird error like "Device dissapeared from the system" in event viewer then that will be somthing in a slot just coming out of its socket ever so slightly, and you need to reseat it ASAP.

 

well no problems yet
i guess it was overheating
if i get probs again i guess i'll just come back to this thread
thanks alot