Randomly Freezing/Crashing to Black Screen

Greetings MajorGeeks,

I (probably like many other first time posters) am having an issue with my computer that I have thus far been unable to solve and am hoping you can help with. I also could not manage to find another poster with problems quite like mine.

The Problem:
My desktop randomly freezes and the screen goes black. The light on the monitor goes orange, indicating no input (as opposed to merely a black colored input) and the computer becomes wholly unresponsive. If there is sound playing it will 'freeze' playing just a fraction of a second on loop, and not even the keyboard lights will change (NumLock, etc). The fans continue to run.

I have to do a hard shutdown (hold the button for 15 seconds) to get it working, at which point it seems fine until it happens again. The computer has run anywhere from 10 minutes to 8 or 10 hours between 'events'. Thus far, it does not appear to be related to anything I'm doing on the computer thus far as I have not been able to encourage or delay it from happening. This has been going on about 4 weeks.

Other than this, my desktop runs like a champ: responsive, boots quickly, lets me play the games I like pretty well considering the specs.

Why Hardware:
I run X/ubuntu 12.04 & Windows XP (SP3). It occurs on both OSs, persisting through driver updates and rollbacks as well as a reformat and full reinstall of both OSs. There have been no hardware changes in the last 6 months and based on what I know (which is admittedly not a great deal) seems like some component is in the process of failing completely.

My System:
Dell XPS 400
Motherboard: Dell Inc. 0FJD030
CPU: Intel Pentium D 820 2800MHz (dual core)
Memory: 4x Kingston 1024MB DDR2-800
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS 1024MB
PSU: Stock Dell 375W
Storage: 1x WD Caviar Blue 500GB and 1x WD Caviar Green 1TB.
OS: X/Ubuntu 12.04 & Windows Dual boot on the same drive (Windows on the first partition)

There were no changes to this configuration for at least 6 months prior to this problem starting.

What I have done:
As mentioned I did eventually do a full format and reinstall of both OSs (At first I thought it might be some sort of nasty bug, and sure enough the software in the malware thread turned up a couple things that Avast did not and I figured that was a surefire way to get rid of it)

When I pull the side of the case off immediately after it happens, none of the components seem particularly warm. The PSU is definitely the warmest but by no means disconcertingly so.

I've tried to force overheating running Prime95 and Furmark, even at the same time. To the extent that I can view temperature data (GPU and Hard Drives, there appears to be no CPU temp sensor) the GPU was always warmest and never climbed above 58 C and has run for up to 30 minutes like that with no issue, only to 'die' an hour later at essentially idle.

I thought it might be the CPU suffering with the higher ambient temps (and extra heat from the GPU I got around Xmas) so I cleaned out the housing and fan around the heat sink really well. Unfortunately the stock setup forces you to remove the heat sink with the hood to clean out the dust, and the paste looked pretty lousy. I also noticed that not only did the heat sink always feel cool, but almost too cool. I cleaned the old paste off and applied new, no change in performance.

I've also tried maxing the power supply by plugging in all the USB peripherals I have, running both optical drives and running Prime95 and Furmark. Same result, can finish my improvised loading 'test' without issue only to fail later at as low a load it's likely to ever see.

I have run memtest, for an hour an a half with no error reported on any of the 3 instances it takes to test all 3.25 gigs listed as available under XP. They all reached 100%. I've read that to 'really' test the ram I have to test the sticks on at a time, then add them back in one at a time, but wasn't sure if this would be worthwhile and kosher with a dual channel setup.

If you've managed to read this far, thank you. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I'm not sure exactly how old the computer is, as it was a given to me when someone just wanted to get rid of it, but I know the warranty is well out. I do have an HTPC which I can cannibalize for parts, as most of the old parts from the XPS ended up there when I last upgraded.

I can also steal the PSU, which I am hesitant to just swap because the way the XPS is assembled. One of the power connectors runs behind the board (and is secured with zip ties) in such a way as to appear to require removal of the board from the case (and therefore nearly all of the components, many which are in the way)to change . I'd really like to be sure before I go there.

I'll try redoing the drivers for the card/chipset again and see what that gets me. I do have some spare GPUs laying around to test out as well. That would be disappointing.

 

Replacing the video card seems to have eliminated the problem.

More importantly putting the 8400 into my HTPC introduced the problem there where it was not before.

I guess I have my answer. Thanks for the help.

 

I contacted EVGA tech support about the card and they agreed. They gave me an RMA for it and I mailed it out last night. Thank you again for the help. I don't know if you mark threads as solved around here, but you could this one.