I bought a second hand HP Mini Tower PC – i3 6100 a few months ago from ebay and have only recently started using it on a regular basis. It only had a 4GB RAM stick and I purchased another one from Cex so it now has 8GB. On a couple of occasions it has crashed/locked up and I've had to switch it off as Ctrl Alt Del didn't do anything, First time I was listening to audio via the browser and it crashed. Second time it crashed whilst watching a video on YouTube.. The first time it crashed, I had to reinstall Windows 10 (SSD) as I switched it off by holding the power button in for five seconds. Second time when it crashed, I disconnected the SSD first and then held the power button in for 5 seconds. Does this sound like a RAM issue? Back in the day when we had to install a separate cache module (Pentium) in the motherboards, I remember having to remove the cache module as the PC kept crashing. I've tried running Memtest but can't get the screen to wake up again if I switch it off - I'm assuming leaving the monitor on for hours will cause screen burn? Thank you in advance.
Are the first and second RAM modules the same brand and type? You may have RAM mismatch. Or dodgy RAM.
I Had some crashes and lock ups from RAM issues recently, turned out to be incorrect settings for the RAM timings in the BIOS (no ideal how they got changed as they had been correct), resetting them to the right values fixed the issues. I used memtest to help trace the fault and within 5 minutes of running it, it had failed due to 16000+ errors. Once the settings were restored it ran for more than a day with 0 reported errors. For the screen shutdown issue I simply disabled the autopower off on the monitor and used the manual power switch, worked fine for me but as you say with autopower off enabled the screen wouldn't wake (I think I turned off the power saving on both the motherboard and the screen itself, can't quite remember now I'm afraid).
Many thanks both, much appreciated. Been a busy few days trying to backup the old Android handset as it's been having issues. I will try the tips and report back.
