computer freezing up for no reason

my computer started freezing up and i can restart it fine a few times windows has done a cheak thing when it restarts then reboots the computer and it starts up fine its maybe about around every 10 min.... i run norton virus scan aobut every week and have SpywareGuard and SpywareBlaster... what could be the problem???

Is this a new problem? Were things running OK before? Any new hardware & or software?

Just freezes? Does not restart automatically? You have to manually shut down?

It is running Check Disk which usually follows a Windows crash/restart rather than a freeze.

Freezing is more likely a hardware issue.

Are you saying that this happens every 10 mins? Constantly?

Can you restart right away?

No blue screen with error messages?

Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id especially of errors that seem to coincide with a crash.

Also check the Device Manager: RT click My Computer then click Manage then Device Manager or go to start/run/ devmgmt.msc for any "!"

things were running fine before it didnt restart automatically but after aobut freezing about 9 times and being able to restart it i got a blue error screen i havent done anyhting new to the computer lately no intallations or anyhting now i get the windows boot screen and choose safe mode and all those start modes but it just goes into the screen where the 3 little blue squars run across the screen then it just reboots to the same windows start screen and one thing before it would freez it would make a little click sound and then like the hard drive was starting back up or something also this is a custom computer just if that does anhting and i had a a boot virus on it before but i got that off but just if that helps

Are you saying that now you cannot get into XP?

Last good configuration from Safe mode options does not work?

Being a custom computer I assume that you have the XP CD.

Boot it & try FIXBOOT as seen here:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm

Also if you know the manufacturer of your hard drive you can find their diagnostic here:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
This will be a bootable floppy that you can create on another computer to run on the problem PC.

If you ever get blue screen errors please note the message in detail. It will generally tell you what is wrong.

no booting it in safe mode just gets me to the windows start screen but then reboots and same thing with last good configuration
so what does fixboot do exactly? will i get my old files? is that going to reinstall windows?

Fixboot: Writes a new partition boot sector onto the system partition. It has no effect on your data.

If that doesn't work the next step would be a Repair Install which will also retain your data while repairing XP.

This is a good guide to that procedure:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

when i did the fixboot it went through it and said the boot sector was cerupted or something but it said fixed so then i typed exit and restarted my computer but it still didnt get into windows, is typing exit canciling the fixboot or is it just not working

Did you receive any error messages?

Another shot would be the following from the Recovery Console:

FIXMBR C:
FIXBOOT C:
BOOTCFG /rebuild

Finally reboot and hopefully that will fix the problem.

no it said i did it fine would i enter those all at once or one at a time? and to reboot do i just type exit?

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;314058

Run one at a time & yes:

EXIT
Use the exit command to quit the Recovery Console and restart your computer.