Strange freezing

[Duvan]

A computer running on windows XP.... started to freeze all of a sudden quite randomly, but usually quite soon after the computer is turned on and u start using it in windows it displays diagonal blue lines/pattern... and u have to reset it to get it running again.
It has also happened more recently that the computer wouldn't even get to starting up windows, but during boot, it started beeping and showed a black screen.
Sometimes the screen can become full of "Microsoft" or "speed 2.0 mhz".
This computer is in my parents' home so I'm just repeating what they told me - haven't been able to confirm this or do any tests.

Thanks!

 

[neoglow]

Busted RAM or motherboard?

 

[uknorthboy]

What neoglow said, and a similar situation happened to me some years ago, I narrowed it down to the graphics card, my mate lent me a spare card he had, when I installed it the problem disappeared

good luck with that problem, hope you can sort it.

 

[chaosophy]

Sounds like it may have clogged up and overheated, then damaged something. Or something has worked loose. Best thing to do is open it up and take a look, strip it down, clean it, look for damage and then re-assemble.

If it still has issues it's then a case of removing/adding different parts to see what trips it.

 

[Duvan]

Thanks.
Actually, the graphics card is integrated to the motherboard... I guess I will try to use an external graphics card and see if it helps... hoping it's only the GPU that is broken on the mobo.

 

[bledd]

Sounds like bad ram to me, run memtest

 

[firewallblocked]

Memtest can be found here.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

 

[Duvan]

FYI the problem was with the mobo... if you had a lan cable plugged into the the LAN port on the mobo it crashed like this. I don't know why the mobo got broken like this and I was merely lucky to find out. Using a PCI Lan card the computer works perfectly again.
Thanks.