I agree with Jeff Atwood his post, and we should only allow very specific cases that have rich detail and went through all the questions relevant to his problem. > One word of caution: creating the canonical "perfect" mega-answer is very very hard. So don't even entertain the idea that you can create a single question and answer that covers all scenarios. While a mega-answer is very hard, it's always nice to have a nice overview or approach to follow. A specific scenario isn't always answered with a specific answer, for a video game the video card or it's driver is more likely to be the problem *but* it could also be the hard drive, system memory, ... My answer does indeed not apply to any `freeze` case; as it might be a part of Firefox freezing, a freeze during the boot phase, and so on. But it does apply to a lot of soft and hard freeze in a general way when you are in the desktop phase... But as we're discussing [in the chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/118/root-access) right now, as @IvoFilpse stated it is probably handy to split of parts of those resources into their own answers and create more detailed tutorials that can be linked to. ---------- Some resources for the FAQ question(s) and answer(s): - Dumping the freeze: - **Hard Freeze**: [CrashOnCtrlScroll][1], to initiate a manual crash dump. - **Soft Freeze**: [ProcDump][2] (former ADPlus), to initiate a dump of a hanging process. - Troubleshooting the dumps: - Make sure that [automatic restarts are disabled][3] and the [memory dump settings](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254649) are right. - [WhoCrashed](http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed), to check the dump to see if something obvious is hanging the system. - [Debugging Tools for Windows](http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx), for in-depth analysis of the dump. - Troubleshooting the computer: - [Check the event logs][4], just in case they caught something... - Make sure your BIOS is up to date, the BIOS settings are right and no overclocking is applied. - [Check for memory errors with MemTest86+](http://www.memtest.org/). - [Check for disk errors](http://superuser.com/questions/157266/when-to-stop-using-a-hdd-what-rules-software-apply/157276#157276). - [Check for stability errors](http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=36). - Disconnect any hardware that you don't need, to rule it out. - [Check the temperatures][5], clean the fans. Check the connections, cables and transistors. - Check for incorrect motherboard voltages in the BIOS, correct them there. - Try to update all the drivers, remove unnecessary boot entries and software. - Other reasons: - Insufficient/problematic PSU, replace it by a more powerful one. - Corruption or faulty system drivers beyond a level that you could fix, a reinstall is required. - Faulty hardware, try to replace individual components with spare parts to see if it has an effect. - Still have issues? You're asking too much of your system, give it a rest and upgrade... :-) [1]: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244139 [2]: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900 [3]: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315192 [4]: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427 [5]: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php