Computer crashing

[White Tiger]

If you can remember i was having problems with my pc crashing, i thought i solved that with a reformat.

But it hasn't its really taken itself at an extreme now, it has crashed 3 times within this hour, and all i was doing was on msn talking to one person listening to music using windows media player 9 and playing tetris on firefox.
Basically it just freezes and the only option is the restart button.
I really can't see it being low memory since i have 512mb DDR style which really should be capable of running that, since about a month ago i had it running garry's mod/steam/winamp/msn all at the same time with no problems.

Any ideas that won't cost me a fortune because i don't have any spare money till about November :(

[Lewiji]

It could be faulty RAM, or heat (dust clogging?)

Former, google for memtest86, it will take a while to run but will identify any faults with your memory.

[White Tiger]

It could be faulty RAM, or heat (dust clogging?)

Former, google for memtest86, it will take a while to run but will identify any faults with your memory.

Well I've already had one faulty ram stick i don't really want another, I'll do that test.

I added and extra 80mm onto the back of the case recently and a smaller one attached to the bottom (which well theres no point in having because it has no air flow to blow.)

[Martinus]

Personally I blame WMP9 but then it may be just because I despise bloatware.

On a more helpful note though... I assume it's not blue-screening? It simply freezes?

[White Tiger]

It just freezes can't move mouse nothing, just the same screen it freezes on.

[edit]Can't get the memtest iso to work in power iso

[PsychoBill]

Harddrive access error, I presume... A mate of mine had the same thing, and it was the connecting wire that was fucked up.

as always, check the connections, wiring, etc. before buying anything new. :)