You can also uninstall other hardware and software until you find the culprit. This process may seem time consuming, but it is the same method followed by your favorite computer guru. When a computer fails there are always a wide variety of symptoms. A system crash may be accompanied by a strange noise, an error message, a blinking light on the printer, etc. All of these symptoms are important and all help steer you towards the cause of the problem.
Computers are often like vehicles.
If you hear or see something strange happening it very well may be a problem on the horizon. So, knowing the symptoms is often not enough, and further tests will often be necessary to isolate the problem. There are countless nifty utility programs that advertise themselves as able to find and correct any problem for you. Some are better than others, but their diagnostic abilities do not always hold up to what they claim. Keep in mind while running these diagnostic checks that they are only a tool operating on an already sick computer.