My XP workstation has been locking up randomly (about once every day or two) for the past week or so. It seems to have started happening only coincidentally after applying some Microsoft updates, because I’ve since backed those out but the freezes continue to occur.

This is extremely annoying, to say the least. I’m always very aware of what I do to my computer, so the fact that I can’t identify the culprit here is frustrating.

I left it running Memtest as I came into work this morning. We’ll see if that finds anything. I’m really hoping it’s not some memory that’s gone bad. Another possible hardware fault would be the power supply. But I don’t know if I can buy a new one just to test this theory – I suppose if I can’t identify anything else. I’m almost positive it’s not CPU or motherboard overheating – nothing like that has happened since I installed the new CPU and cooler, and spot checks of temperature recently haven’t turned up anything strange.

Next step, after the memory test, will be some virus scans (even though I have Avast! running all the time and it hasn’t let me down yet), and then removing all but the most essential services.

If only it weren’t random, and I could make it happen at will, I’d be a much happier camper. Supporting people with problems like this is the worst because you have no real way of knowing if things are fixed – at best, you can only wait a while and see if, during an arbitary period of time, things continue to work…