Commercial tools are often not required to understand why a computer keeps crashing. The Windows operating system provides a number of different utilities and log files that can prove just as useful.

Your starting point should be to review the event viewer log (start/run/eventvwr). This critical operating system log file tracks all information and log entries relating to applications and the operating system hardware. Look for any log entries that could crash PC computers around the time of your most recent freeze/crash. These log entries can then prove most useful for researching online to pinpoint exactly what piece of hardware or software was to blame.

A major concern should be that your hardware may have developed a fault. The principal tool for checking this is the device manager. It provides useful information that the current state of all hardware peripherals and components. Issues may be detected relating to your drivers as well as conflicts between components. The program even suggests different resolutions.

Your hard drive should also be checked for corruption or damage. The Windows error checking utility (Windows Explorer/pick one of your hard drives/properties/tools tab) is able to scan the hard drive sectors for signs of physical as well as software faults and will attempt a repair.

If your computer keeps crashing before the system even starts up then you may only be able to check your BIOS menu. This can be accessed as the system is starting up by using the F10 key. Check that there are no conflicts between hardware components and also make sure the CPU temperature (usually under diagnostics section) and fan speeds are okay.

Finally, one useful workaround when a computer keeps crashing is to resort to the System Restore tool. This allows you to rollback changes to the registry file which may become corrupted due to viruses, application changes, etc. You may also use it from the advanced Windows menu (as your system is booting up) but using the last known good configuration.