Comp freezing

[luca5371]

My computer just isn't working quite right. I've had lots of problems with the original DVD drive I bought and so I finally replaced it with one from another machine and now that doesn't work well either. My wife keeps telling me the thing is freezing up on her but I'm not seeing it much. I'm thinking it must be the mobo but I tried to update the drivers and that isn't helping.

Anyways, anyone know good checks so that I can find out what is wrong with it. I'm betting it's as simple as drivers. How can you tell which drivers you do have installed?

 

[rohan23]

Right click on my computer, click on properties, and then device manager. Find whatever you are looking for in the categories. If there is a yellow exclamation point next to it, that means something is wrong.

 

[luca5371]

Did that and nothing registered as wrong. Got a new DVD drive to replace the old one and am getting the same problems (BIOS doesn't recognize it or does for a little then quits recognizing it sometimes while it's in the middle of doing something) with this one despite it being a completely different brand/model. Makes me think this is a motherboard issue. Would you all concur?

 

[rohan23]

Did you do a virus scan? Try defragmenting and doing a disk cleanup.

 

[luca5371]

I'm pretty sure that it can't be a virus since it has virus protection and has been scanned probably 10 times since these problems started. I ran check disk last night and there were none but I'll try defragmenting and doing a disk cleanup.

Based on what's happening, I guess I'm really thinking it's got to be the mobo or bad SATA cables. I've checked the logs and all that is listed is some program (occured with Vist itself, IE, and Itunes) quits working. No details as to why it did but if the sATA ports on the mobo are bad, couldn't that cause these types of problems as well as the hard drive switches from connected to not and then back?