Freezing/Black Screen Desktop Problem

My brother's computer has been semi-functional for over a year now. Here's the problem in specifics. The computer will start up, it never has a problem doing this. Desktop comes up, programs load. While running there is no notable slowness, everything functions as it should. At any random interval, and usually it's within the first ten minutes, the image freezes (including an immobile mouse) and the sound will stutter. This lasts for about a second, then, the screen goes black. The computer itself does not power down. You press restart and repeat the process.

It can happen within a few seconds, a half hour, a whole day. There is no apparent cause. The tower does not have to be physically disturbed and no programs have to be open. You can do nothing but press reset and be greeted by a black screen five minutes later without touching anything.

Other times it will run for days, seemingly indefinitely. Sometimes you get lucky and it just stays on. Except it never lasts as Windows automatically searches for updates and then eventually automatically gives you a restart timer. Seeing as nobody can man the computer 24/7, it will be restarted at some point by Windows updates and then it will freeze again.

We've tried different monitors and vga cables. In research of the problem, my brother has found that everything he googles about the issue tells him that his power supply might be bad. Just recently, there's been a brand new one installed. The result's been the exact same thing.

Now here's the really strange part. Our dad is the computer guy in our family. He built both mine and my brother's computers and mine has worked without a problem for seven years. He's pretty knowledgeable. So we hand the thing over for him to observe the problem and tell us what he thinks. Except it doesn't happen. He had the computer in his possession for weeks and it never froze on him. After a little while we asked him to restart it as it could just be one of those fluke lucky runs. So he does just that on a daily basis for awhile. In spite of this, it never froze in his possession once. We take it home and it freezes for us almost immediately.

So most importantly, what could be causing this other than what's already been ruled out. And as an aside, what in the world could be the explanation behind the machine having no problems at a different location?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Dr. Uzuki

We take it home and it freezes for us almost immediately.

And as an aside, what in the world could be the explanation behind the machine having no problems at a different location?

I may be not uh correct in this assumption but lol, that sounds like a total power drain. It does happen. Do you guys have something big running? Like a heater or an electric constant current else where in the house? A dryer or a fridge closeby? Try testing it and see that's what causing it.

For instance, I had an uncle who hated us for doing laundry with the dryer because the wall behind it is the other side of his room and his tv and his monitor hooked up to the same wall which they would spaz out, not from beating or anything but the current nearby. Then again, crazier things happened.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Problem is, and I don't know if you could tell this by the previous post, but me and my brother are roommates and my computer does not have the same problem. Additionally we've moved into a new place just this weekend. Does the same thing with just about none of our other appliances even set up.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

When you bring the PC to your dad, do you give him all the cables, or just the tower? If its the former, try a different power cable. if its the latter, the only thing I can think of is dirty power, but you moved, so that shouldn't be the case. Also check cabling inside the computer, make sure something isn't loose.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Something like that happened to me. It randomly freezes and I had to restart it manually. Sometimes it will run flawlessly for a few hours, sometimes less than a minute, before it starts freezing. I forgot how I figured it out, but I remembered it was something regarding my internet connection and registry settings. After editing some registry entries (I found the instructions through Google), the freezing stopped.

It's running on Windows XP and has an AthlonXP processor.

I hope that's some use.

I was speaking idiomatically.