MPC 1000 black - crashes randomly

I have a 1000 black with 128ram and hard drive installed by GC. its 16- July 2009 version 2.13 and it keeps on crashing just randomly, no particular event. Checked cables seated properly , Am wondering if I should open it and take a look - any ideas ?

what cable did you check without opening it up? the cables i tell people to check are all inside. dont forget to reseat ram too

I did open it up removed and reseated ram and checked all the internal connections.
I have reinstalled the OS but it keeps crashing randomly, I'm thinking it might be the motherboard - its in like new condition so it must be a lemon (bought it off cl and thought it worked -smh)

omoanya wrote:and hard drive installed by GC.

Might be the real issue.
I would remove the hard drive and look for any pinched or displaced wires.
I would then try using it without the hard drive installed to see if it still did it.

ok, thanks I 'll try that today - I haven't done it before but I'm sure I can find a video on youtube.

i would also swap out the ram or just temporarily take it out... crashing can mean bad ram. it can also mean an aged weakening power supply... when the disk tries to spin up, power requirements become too much and the system is forced to restart or hang. this is one reason why solid state storage is preferable to real disks. power requirements are small, no heat, no spin up time etc.

....my first thought was the hard drive, too....

Thanks guys, I am working on pulling out the hard drive now/ I did remove the ram upgrade and it still happened ... will keep you posted, thanks again for the help.

Question, I see the hard drive in a little metal case ...can i just remove the screws unplug it and pull it out or do I have to do anything else?

OK, that was easy, you guys may be geniuses. I haven't had a crash yet ..fingers crossed.

yeah some hard drive are prone to errors ... what MFG and size is the HD?
Could be a bad or bent pin too, not saying that is likely but something to investigate.