Hey guys, It's been a long time since I posted anything on these forums. Mostly because my computer actually started working and I had no need to make these kind of threads...but I guess I ran out of luck.

Basically the problem I am having is this:

When I am doing anything on my computer, whether it be browsing on firefox, talking with people in ventrilo, playing CSS, playing L4D, or even just on my desktop, my computer completely locks up and I can no longer click on or type anything. When my computer is locked up, I am still able to move my mouse cursor, which has turned into the sand timer that pops up when stuff loads, but I am unable to click, select, of highlight anything. Basically all of my computers functions are disabled while my computer is locked up.

This problem is obviously very annoying, especially when I am playing games (It happens more in Left 4 Dead than CSS) I will be running the game fine, no ping spikes or fps problems, when all of a sudden i will freeze in place, the sound will loop what I just heard OVER and OVER again for about 20-30 seconds. Then it stops and everything is back to normal, and I continue playing until it happens again.

I'll give an overview of recent things I've done to my computer to help anyone in the diagnosis of my problem.
-I recently reformatted using a pirated copy of Windows XP . I lost the CD of the legit copy I bought at MB.
-My computer chair bumped into my tower while it was running and completely just locked the whole computer up. It must have been a pretty hard bump because when I tried to restart my computer, nothing would happen after the BIOS screen...it would just stay a black screen
-SO, I looked inside my computer, made sure no wires got disconnected, or that nothing was dislodged or out of place. I ended up cleaning off all the dust and took my processor out, dusted it off, and put it back into it's place.
-Once I put the processor back in. My computer booted up fine. Although it seemed that after this incident that I started experiencing the problem.

Anyway, sorry for the ESSAY, but I wanted to make sure I explained everything so you guys can try to help me get to the bottom of the problem. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Here are some of the things I think might be causing the problem.

1. When I put my processor back in, and put the heat sync back on, I may have created "air bubbles" in the thermal paste.

2. I may have damaged my RAM when I bumped my computer. (I turned around in my chair and my arm rest thing slammed into the side of my computer...just fyi )

IF I were you. I would install a new HDD.


I'm assuming the HD has reading problems after the bump.

a hard bump can damage or destroy the hard disk while running. I'm not going to get into a essay because im watching zach and miri make a porno.

I put money on a different HDD will fix it.


B

The hard drive would be first thought as well after it suffering a bump while running. sometimes it doesnt take much to kill one. if thats not the issue, my next part to test would be the video card.

Now that movie night is done.

a hard drive is like a old vinyl record. It's harder to break a record while not on the player than on. Just like a hard drive.

Working with hard drives over my life. I have dropped a few. Not one has ever broken dropped. I have had the same situation as you as I have my tower next to my chair. As I bumped one of mine I had a freeze and it would not find the OS at all. They are much more prone to damage while running. Very easily actually as they spin fast and the actuator arm can damage easily during operation.

I totally agree with this but to add some more info, hard drives usually lock the actuator arm off to the side when not in use which is what causes them to be less prone to damage than when they are running.

Try running Scandisk and seeing if it identifies any surface errors.

Care to elaborate in this part?
Did you remove the heatsink from the CPU, then simply reinstall it without cleaning it all down and reapplying new thermal grease? If so that is likely your culprit there.
If you bumped it the first time and dislodged the CPU slightly, then re-seating it would appear to fix it but without fresh thermal paste you might have contaminants or poor contact spots which are causing localized overheating issues.

i think he means that the layer of TIM he applied wasnt spread very well and there may be air bubbles caught in the TIM between the CPU and HSF

what I meant was pretty much what you just said. I removed the heat sync from the processor took the chip out and put it back in and replaced the heat sync back on the processor. I did not change or apply new thermal paste, I just used what was still applied. So what I meant was, that when I put the heat sync back on...some air may have been trapped between the heat sync and the chip itself.

... Not the best practice but I've known people who've done this before and not had problems afterwards... I sure as hell wouldn't do it though.

If the paste had cured already (most probable case) you might get trapped air but if it was the least bit... "pasty" still you might be good.