Inspiron Desktop 531 keeps locking up

My computer does the same thing, and it is also less than two years old too. It's a pain to have to reboot because nothing works. Does anyone have any suggestion?

My Inspiron 531 with Vista does the same thing.  No warning, just freezes up forcing a manual shut down.

I'm running a Inspiron 531 with Windows 7 and haven't had any issues for over two years now.  So my first thought is make sure you have the latest video drivers installed.  My second thought is whether this is related to the Windows Updates released last week.  There have been reports on other forums of individuals having issues will one of those updates.  Suggest you restore to a point prior to the updates and install them one at a time to see if one causes the issues.

This sort of problem is generally caused by either a faulty power supply or failing motherboard or failing hard disk (specifically, the boot disk). Do you notice any disk activity around the time the computer locks up? What is the average time from boot up until your computer freezes?

I don't notice disk activity.  It just locks up.  It has been doing it for several months now.  I was wondering if it has something to do with Vista.  I was told that if I removed Vista and installed the Windows XP which I own that many of my files may not work. 

I hear good reports about Windows 7, but what would that do to my files that were created on Vista?

When someone said they thought a couple capacitors are bad, does that mean the motherboard?  If the motherboard is replaced, will that preserve all my files?

One other thing that has been happening during this same time is that Word processing takes a long time to open and often I get "Normal" messages several times before Word will close.  This also happens when I try to close my Outlook email.

I will look into your suggestions further.

jimgem

This problem has been going on for several months.  In addition to the locking up, I have an issue with Word documents taking a while to open and often upon trying to close have to respond multiple times to a pop-up about "Normal."  Would this be an issue with Vista?  I know if I remove Vista and install XP which I own that my files will not likely work.  What would happen if I remove Vista and install Windows 7?  What would that do to my existing files created on Vista?

I am open to whatever may work.  I just don't know enough about computer workings to feel confident to try anything.

Thanks for the suggestions.

jimgem

I'm having the same problem. It started when I first got the computer. Dell Inspiron 531 Vista from Walmart. It usually happens to me when I check email. If it locks up, it locks at the beginning when it first opens or soon after. At first I was using Windows Mail. It would lock up sometimes then.

Then I upgraded to Windows Live Mail, the problem seemed to go away for a couple days then it started locking up again. It also can lock up sometimes when email is left open. Lately the same thing has been happening with Windows Live Messenger.

I thought it might be Norton Antivirus, so I removed it a while back and got Mcafee. It seemed to work for a few days then came back again. I have read to turn off virus scan from Email and Instant Messaging. That seemed to work for a day, but now we still get lockups. I opened up my computer and removed dust with cotton swabs and canned air. That seemed to help a little bit to remove noise, but the computer still locks up.

It seems that Windows Live Mail and Windows Messenger put too much strain on the processor(AMD Athlon x64 X2 Dual Core 4400) and cause it to shutdown. When my computer was still in warranty, I talked to Dell chat but they wanted to refer me to the paid part of their support. I wish they would help us with this problem since it seems to happen to a lot of us.

Since posting a reply several months ago I also started having issues with my Inspiron 531 freezing up.  Turned out to be my power supply was dying.  I have since replaced it and have not had any problems.

Maybe that is what is wrong with mine, it only happens when I try to use Windows Live Mail or Windows Live Messenger. I lately noticed that I have an outdated nVidia nforce Networking Controller driver, my computer was made in 12/6/2007 and the version installed is 65.65. The drivers and download section shows the latest version is 65.85 but made in 9/28/07.

When you follow the link it takes you to the wrong file version 67.58 for XP. But I think it's still the correct version since I found another place which has it and it's right. I'm a little nervous to install this, I don't want to cause any more problems, but it might be something.

Can an outdated nVidia nForce Networking Controller cause freezing?

I have been having the same problem with my Inspiron 531 and was wondering if you ever found out what caused it.  Mine freezes up and diagonal lines appear across the screen.  Thanks.

I am having a similar problem with my less than a week old XPS 8300 and have had some conversation about it here:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19374123/19865374.aspx#19865374

I also here the Aurora's are having similar issues:

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19375646/19862917.aspx?PageIndex=1

And the Optiplex also:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19366377/19827988.aspx#19827988

What is going on with the Dell desktops?!?