wrote:
Hi, I am working on a friends computer and the computer is functioning
really slow. Not to mention the computer will just lock up and you
have to reboot. Now the person they had fix their computer orignally
replaced thier hard drive, put more ram in and thats about it. Well
the retard didnt put any fans in the computer so the only fans where
the one on the CPU and the one in the power supply. The computer ran
this way for about a year and started having these problems.

Check CPU is BIOS detected at it's correct speed, and the speed of the
RAM is correct for the motherboard. You can get a free utility 'cpu-z'
from www.cpuid.com to determine this, and gateway's web site info should
give you the spec's of your motherboard.

If correct, I'd blame the CPU fan/heatsink. May be running slowly, or
the heatsink is no longer making much contact with the CPU, as the
thermal paste has fallen off. Take it off (carefully), clean and remount
it with a small bit of thermal paste.

Modern CPU's, if run hot, will run down their internal clock
architecture to save damage - this causes a very slow running machine.

If your hard drive feels hot, it would not hurt to add a fan. The
primary cause of total hard drive failure is excessive heat, and a lot
of manufacturers don't pay much attention to this as they should.

--
Adrian C