Something's not right with my desktop.

About a week ago my desktop started freezing overnight, and if I left it alone for awhile it would freeze also. By freeze I mean I'd go to bed or go out for the day and come back, turn my monitor on and my mouse would not move, my time and date would be off by a few hours (date would be the previous day's date if I left it overnight) If I had a game that I play quite a bit up and left it do stuff overnight that would be disconnected when the time froze. I do not have any external devices plugged in when it does this nor have I added anything new to the system. From my light research I've come across that it's a software issue and to just re-install Windows, but I got to thinking could it be a faulty RAM module so I went to get Memtest86+, but there are so many different links under the downloads that I don't know which is the correct one to use. I also thought it could (by a far chance) be my CMOS, but my build is only a little over a year old.

Could anyone shed some light on this please?


Spock_96


PS: How's everyone doing? I saw that I almost missed a few birthday's. Hope there is still some cake left over.:-D

 

Your build might only be about a year old but, that doesn't mean the CMOS battery can't fail in that time. Your system clock goes out of sync.

Which version of Memtest 86+ you download depends on how you want to use it. The ISO file when burned to CD is bootable. If there's a version for floppy, it too is bootable.

 

I thought that when your CMOS battery went out it was just your clock that was affected not your entire system.:confused (Been awhile since I've really done any work outside of cleaning them haha.)

Thank you.

 

When the CMOS battery goes dead, it's not just the clock that's affected. There was another thread a little while back where the OP's CMOS battery went dead and also affected the person's paid antivirus among other things along with the clock.

 

How can I test the CMOS, to see if it's on it's way out?

 

I don't know of a way to test the CMOS. I just notice classic signs like you've had or the other poster I mentioned and replace the battery(ies) [some desktops use two ganged button cells]. They're cheap enough button cell batteries available at most RadioShacks.

 

If the time is correct after you shut down and re-boot, it's not likely the CMOS is the issue. CR2032 batteries are not very expensive should you choose to error on the side of caution. Mine is about five years old, and still works fine.

I'd be looking into other things like the OS, RAM status, HDD status, and possibly even malware.

 

That's why I had asked about Memtest86+, in my OP I had mentioned reinstalling my OS. The HDD is newer than the build since the original one(s) I had in the build were super old and both died. I had done a full scan with Avast that came up clean. Haven't had a chance to run Malwarebytes.

 

EDIT: Malwarebytes did not find anything.

 

The latest version of MemTest should be fine, and can be found on the latest Ultimate Boot CD:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ultimate_boot_cd_(ubcd).html

Personally, I like HDSentinel as a failure prediction agent:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/hard_disk_sentinel.html