Technical issues

[6750a6d991ef6miracle.flame]

I am aware that this is completely wrong forum for asking something like this but know the whereabouts here, some folks and I'm surely not a stranger here.

I'd like to troubleshoot some technical issues I've come into lately. The thing is my PC is crashing from time to time.. freeze for a second then reboot. This was unbearable when I was using GoodRAM so I've replaced it for Corsair. Now the crashes are not on daily basis but they occur from time to time absolutely unrelated to anything particular. Sometimes once in a month, other time twice a day. My girlfriend has the same problem but on a notebook.

I'm sure there has to be some log with memory dump report or something that could be analyzed to spot whatever's behind the problem. My first question is where shall I look for such a log.

My second question is how to track the troublemaking piece of hardware in the log because I doubt I'll be able to read the dump.

I'd be glad if you could at least redirect me to some right place where kind people would care to help such a noob in that area because I know of many places full of "smart" wannabees really glad to offer bullshit they just think is right.

My specs:
Power: EuroCASE ATX-400 JSP
MB: Asus P5B SE
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz
RAM: Corsair 2x1024 MB dual
VGA: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD2600 XT 512 MB
HDD: WD Corsair 600 GB SATA II 16 MB cache, NTFS
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2

Any sort of help or advise on solving such issues will be much appreciated.

[6750a6d992a94The Brain]

Sounds like that either your PSU or motherboard (or both) is slowly dying away.
Check that your motherboard doesn't have bad capacitors.
Check your computers memory with memtest86+.

[6750a6d992d71Kolya]

Okay, I'm going by German names here...exact labels may vary.
Right-click "My Computer" on your desktop,  choose "Properties", on the "Extended" tab in the "Start and Recovery" box choose "Settings".
In the "System error" box check "Register event in system log" and you can also choose what kind of memory dump you want to store where. Although I have no idea what do with that either.
Now after a crash, restart, right-click "My Computer" but choose "Manage" this time. In the tree on the left extend "System" + "Event display" + "System". On the right the system error(s) will be listed. Hope this helps.

Also, since it's summer, you may want to monitor your system's temperature. It could turn off simply to protect the CPU or motherboard. That's what my system does sometimes. The crashing usually is very dramatic with sudden turnoff or getting stuck on a sound, then a system bluescreen (not windows) and either it restarts then or I will have to cold-start. In any case, taking off the sideplate of the computer case usually helps with that.

You could also post this in the Technical trouble shooting forum of TTLG. They have quite a few knowledgeable people around and often helped me before.

[6750a6d992ec4miracle.flame]

Really thanks for replies, will try your suggestions. About that temperature and emergency shut-downs I doubt it has something to do with it in our case.. those usually turn the machine off, not reboot. And these problems were intact in winter as well..whew how the time flies...

I'll report back later, thanks again.