[czechraiser]

Hi, I bought a desktop from a friend about a year ago. It's terrible and I mean to get rid of it soon, but in the meantime i'm stuck with it. Lately it has decided to go to blue screen and shut down at the worst possible moments. the only pattern I think I have picked up on is that it seems to happen more often when I am playing online poker on multiple sites at once. Any of the sites individually and it doesn't seem to happen, but when it's three sites open at once, it does. Is there any way for me to work out what is happening and fix it? (It also happened when a friend was transferring some files to me from his external hard drive, but i think it may have been that the memory was overtaxed, so I deleted a bunch of files (the memory on the C drive was close to being maxed out). Thanks.

[Jonny330]

sounds like it could be a cooling problem to me, how dusty is it inside?

[flavallee]

You're confusing memory(RAM) with hard drive space. They're 2 entirely different things.

You bought that desktop from a friend and inherited all the problems and "debris" that came in it. A clean reinstall of Windows and getting a fresh start would do wonders for it.

What's the brand name and model name and model number of that desktop?

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[ItsZP35]

Does it happen every time you are on multiple sites?

[czechraiser]

Hi all, Had a visitor and got taken away from computer for a bit. Here are the answers to the above questions.

It was quite dirty inside and ran very loudly. The only way I know of to clean it is to blow the dust out, which I did (and got a face-full).

I don't know the name and model number (this was bought where I live in the Czech Rep. and was probably put together by the friend). It runs an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.2 GHz and 2 GB RAM (don't laugh) with a 32 bit OS.

And yes, I do believe it's happening every time I run multiple sites, but more specifically when i run multiple sites including both Carbon and Celebpoker (I can and have run Paradise and Party with no problems ever; these started with the aforementioned sites were installed, but each alone is not a problem).

[Jonny330]

Hmm, I think giving it a bit of a clean would help myself, try getting some of that dust out. Especially on the cpu's heatsink, sometimes they can get clogged with dust and stop the air from cooling the processor down. I've had the same problem myself and run into performance and noise issues because of it.

[czechraiser]

what are the best ways to get dust out beyond blowing? I'm nervous about damaging the computer somehow. I'm fairly new at this...

[Jonny330]

You could try getting some sort of brush and try brushing the dust off the top of the heatsink (just underneath the fan) by prodding the brush through the fan blades. You don't have to be too rigorous it tends to come off quite easily. Oh, and make sure it's turned off first of course

[czechraiser]

I suspect it's something more than dust though as the coincidence of it always happening when I'm on multiple poker sites seems curious.

[Jonny330]

Yeah, it is curious. It could be some faulty RAM, in which case I'd suggest running a program called prime95 and run a "torture test". That would soon flag up a problem with your ram if it was faulty. Or, if you've got a spare blank cd (or floppy disc) laying around you can use windows memory diagnostic.

[czechraiser]

tried the prime95, and if i'm reading it correctly the computer seems to have passed.

[czechraiser]

oh wait...no, wait more coming up...execution halted. Fatal error. Torture test not completed. What does all this mean?

[Jonny330]

that means there was an error, so it may be worth looking into the health of your RAM more. I'd try removing one of the sticks of RAM then running the test again, see if you can eliminate the faulty ram.