Constant computer crashes, don't know why.

[funkyjiveturkey]

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1075
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600mhz
Video card: Nvidia Geforce 520 1 GB DDR3
Windows 7 Ultimate on a 90GB Corsair Solid State

okay so recently my computer has started constantly crashing for no reason. Before i did a reinstall, it would literally freeze and just stay like that for hours if left unattended. it would get the occassional blue screen but that was kind of rare, it would mostly just freeze. it got to be such a frequent problem that a few weeks ago i reinstalled my copy of windows and that seems to have fixed the problem....for a while anyway.

after a few weeks of everything running smoothly, over the past 2 weeks it's started up again, this time in a different manner. instead of freezing it just outright crashes. the screen just goes completely black out of nowhere, and then it crashes and restarts a moment later. usually it does it at random times, even if i'm not doing anything the least bit hard on the processor. sometimes it'll crash after an hour, sometimes it does it right on startup. in the past 40 minutes it's done it twice while trying to write this.

at first i thought it was my solid state of all things. i have another back-up hard drive i haven't tried using yet. what do you think it could be?

HDD? Heatsink? Software bug?

thanks in advance

 

[DefunctTheory]

My guess is your SSD. When those things fail, they fail hard.

Over heating components should lead to system reboots, not freezes. Software would have been fixed by the re-install (Unless its a particular problem related to software your installing after the reboot).

In anycase, try installing on your back up and see what happens.

EDIT: It could be faulty RAM as well, but check the SSD first.

 

[SnowyGamester]

Do some diagnostics. Download a memtest iso to check your RAM and CPU. Download coretemp and watch your temperatures a bit to see if anything is getting too hot. Perhaps remove your graphics card and try your onboard graphics for a while if you have any. You could check your SSD for faults I guess, though I don't think a faulty drive is likely to cause hard resets as you described.

 

[teisjm]

My old computer used to do stuff like that. It would usually fix it for a while to clean the inside of it, where dust and stuff was clogging up the fans, making it crash when it got too hot.
Prior to that, it would fuck up because the power supply wasn't big enough for my hardware :/

Probably stating the obvious here, but be gentle if you clean it inside, as to not ruin anything.