Have you ever been happily typing away or playing your favorite game, to suddenly witness the screen freeze? You sit there hoping it is just a temporary pause while something loads, but then as the seconds turn to minutes, you realize that you have just been a victim of the frozen screen of death, or a computer crash.

Anyone who utilizes windows is familiar with the ubiquitous and horrible effects of the computer crashing while you are in the middle of working, and it is no fun losing your hard earned data all in a second. Listed below are some of the most common causes of computer crashes, and a few things you may be able to change in order to avoid them.

Hardware Conflict

The most common reason for a computer crash is known as hardware conflict. Hardware conflict occurs when two pieces of hardware-a keyboard and mouse, for example-share the same interrupt request channel (IRQ). If you have a number of devices attached to your computer, the probability of a pair of them not being installed correctly increases and can cause two of them to share an IRQ, and when this happens your computer can crash.

The simplest way to avoid this is by checking the IRQ's being utilized at a given moment, and then re-installing any device that is using a repeated IRQ.

Bad Ram

Random Access Memory or RAM problems could be causing your computer to crash. The error typically displayed when RAM is the problem is fatal exception error. A fatal error can mean there is a serious hardware problem, but sometimes it is simply a RAM problem caused by mismatched RAM chips. By mixing RAM chips of different speeds, your computer will be forced to run them all at a lower speed and can hence cause a crash.

You can avoid this problem by making sure all the RAM chips installed within your computer are the same speed, or by increasing the wait state of the RAM within the BIOS settings on your computer.

BIOS Settings

All motherboards are supplied with a given range of chipset settings by the manufacturer. Sometimes these settings can be a common culprit for computer crashes.

In order to access the chipset settings, you usually need to press F2 or delete during the first few seconds of booting up your computer. Once you are looking at the BIOS, a few things that could be causing your computer to freeze are CAS latency discrepancies where the latency does not match the RAM, which you are using. Older RAM uses a latency of 3 while newer SDRAM uses a latency of 2. Another thing, which can be adjusted within the BIOS, is the IRQ settings.

Hard Disk Drives

After a few weeks of use, the information on your hard drive begins to become fragmented. It is an excellent idea to defragment your hard drive every week or so to keep your computer running smooth and fast.

Fatal VXD Errors and OE Exceptions

Fatal VXD Errors and OE Exceptions are typically caused by video card problems. These can usually be fixed quite easily by reducing the resolution of the video display.

Viruses

Obviously, viruses can cause many problems other than simply running malicious code on your computer. The instability caused by viruses lurking in the background of your system is a common cause of crashes. The easiest way to deal with these is by scanning anything you download onto your hard disk, and by performing regular virus scanning and quarantine.

Printers

Sending a document to be printed creates a bigger file, referred to as a postscript file. Since the printer only has a small amount of memory, it is easy for it to become overloaded when you are attempting to print a large document and can cause your computer to crash. It is a good idea to turn off the printer for ten seconds and turn it back on if you suspect printer overload.

Software

Another cause of computer crashes is software that has been installed improperly. The easiest way to fix this problem when you suspect software malfunction is by completely removing the suspect software, then re-installing it.

Overheating

All central processing units or CPU's generate a lot of heat and are fitted with factory installed cooling apparatus. When the CPU overheats, it causes a crash, which is known as a kernel error. A great investment to remedy this problem is an after market cooling system, or larger fan.

Power Supply Problems

The final problem, which could be causing your computer to crash, is the power supply. An interrupted power supply or surge can wreak havoc on your system. A good idea is investing in an uninterrupted power supply.