Windows 10: Computer over the past few months has crashed without any signs: I may have found the...

Hi guys, I've been having several different computer errors, all starting since about half a year ago. However, as of this month, the errors seem to now be happening on the daily, and I had a lot of trouble figuring out what was the problem.


The most notable thing that had been happening is the fact that no matter how much CPU or RAM I was using, the computer would randomly have all apps start not responding, and the computer would just freeze, until I forcefully quit it. It didn't matter whether I was playing a very intensive game on computer, or the only appilcations that I had on were firefox and Google. AFter which, turning it on, and error stating that I needed to "Reboot and Select a Hard Disk Drive" would show up.


Sometimes, I would wait a few hours after starting it again, only to have the same error message. Sometimes, I would instantly boot it back up, and it would work perfectly fine and start up. When the error message asking to "select a hard disk drive" would show up, even when I did select an HDD through the boot options, it would display the error message.


When things got really bad, I had tried to clean the computer out with a decompressor, which didn't help. Other times, all I had to do was unplug and replug everything back in, and it would magically start working again.


Yesterday and today through, I think I've actually found the cause of the problem. I had ran the "netsh winsock reset" command thru the CMD prompt, and it indicated that corruptions were found on a hard drive, which got me worried. Today, when it crashed again, when I booted everything back up, it said that it was "repairing my C: drive." At this point, I'm pretty positive that my HDD is just getting old and nearing its eventual death, and that I should transfer all of my OS information and personal files to a spare HDD. Is this assessment right? Are there any other things that may be the reason why this is happening?


Extra info: Computer is a model XPS 8300, replaced HDD a few years ago due to malware.

:)

 

all games crash!

I suggest you run rthdribl > http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/archives/rthdribl_1_2.zip
Increase the window size step by step and watch your vga temps permanently.
What happens?
If it crashes, run at stock speeds as suggested before and retry.

P.S.: When your system locks, does the display signal turn off after a time?
Stuttering sound or no sound at all when freezing?
What X1800XT model do you own exactly?

 

Best thermal paste

Most decent thermal paste is about all the same (1-2 degree difference). Without knowing the two listed, (I use MX-2), I would suggest going with the one that is non-conductive.

 

all games crash!

ive watch my temps and both the cpu and gpu are within normal ranges. when it freezes it simply freezes the image and stops the sound. i must reboot to get back to windows.