[Madrauk]

It all started recently, as a little bug had been developed while I play Skyrim. Most of my play sessions now end with me trying to quicksave, which causes my computer to go into a serious meltdown freeze where no keyboard or mouse input works. I can't even change my numlock of capslock, which is why I know it is totally frozen. Also, my speakers will start to make a sound not unlike dubstep, which is very strange. The only way to get it out of this state is by physically removing the electric cable from the wall.

I had come to accept this and decided next time I would just play on windowed mode, but today after watching a short Youtube video, my cursor froze in place and I just thought it was Firefox crapping out on me again. However, I tried to change my numlock setting and lo and behold, it was frozen on. It didn't play dubstep this time, most likely because the speakers weren't playing any sounds.

All this has caused me to worry if the repeated hard resets had been affecting the insides of my computer, a completely plausible possibility due to the fact that I built it myself and it isn't what I would call "infallible" to errors of this kind. The only hardware difference between me having these errors and before when I had never experienced them was that I had installed two new sticks of RAM. I don't see how that could cause this, but it is the only noticeable difference. Any help on this issue is appreciated!

[pip22]

RAM modules can be faulty even from new, or develop faults quickly especially if they are a cheaper, generic brand instead of more expensive, well-known and trusted brands. They can even be free from faults but that particular brand just isn't 100% compatible with your PC, or, when adding more RAM, it doesn't get along with other brands of RAM modules you already have in it.

You can test the RAM modules with Memtest86:
http://www.memtest.org/

To run the test you need to create a CD from the downloaded Memtest86 ISO file, which you can do with burning software that can burn ISO images to a CD (eg Nero), or use IMGBurn from here: http://filehippo.com/download_imgburn/

When you've made the CD, boot your PC from it to start the Memtest86 utility. The more passes you make on the RAM (ie the more times you run the test on the RAM) the more accurate the reported results will be.

Memtest86 can only tell you if a RAM module is faulty, it can't tell you if there's a compatibility issue with the modules themselves.
Suspected RAM compatibility issues can only be cured by trial and error (basically trying different brands until Windows is stable).

[Madrauk]

sorry for getting back to you so late, i ran memtest and got 0 errors, meanwhile the crash has continued to occur by doing simple things like playing Minecraft and trying to go fullscreen in a youtube video. If anybody else has any suggestions, at least to find out what part of my machine is causing it so i know what to replace, I would really appreciate it!

[Madrauk]

This is getting out of hand, my computer just crashed after starting minecraft. not playing minecraft for a few hours, not playing skyrim. STARTING. MINECRAFT. this is clearly getting worse, so if anyone could refer me to a hardware debugger, or a log program so i can know what failed, please do, this is becoming ridiculous!

[Hughv]

I'd run chkdsk /r, and check for overheating.
Look in Event Viewer, System and Application for critical errors.

[Madrauk]

i've had known overheating problems for the duration of my computers life, but this is a very recent and unique issue. short of hardware degredation over time, or the inclusion of new RAM making my computer hotter, that isn't the problem.