New
#1
random freeze while streaming online video
My home built computer has been having random crashes since August, but before then it worked fine. Historically, the crashes have happened in various situations, changing with each attempt to fix them. The most recent change I made to my system was to get rid of Norton Internet Security and replace it with Microsoft Security Essentials. Since then the crashes have become a bit more reproducible: about half the time I try to watch streaming video online the screen will freeze and the sound will stutter, requiring a hard reset.
I have run windows memory diagnostic, prime95, and various graphics card stress tests repeatedly, so I feel I can confidently say the problem is not hardware. Besides, this only started a few months ago, and my computer had been working just fine for a few months before then. Any suggestions?