OT _ But I am stuck, so COMPUTER guys please look here!

[SharkmanBMW]

pentium 4
1.6g
512 ram
windows xp
This belongs to my girlfriend who is a student, so I need to get it running asap!

it was running great for a year, now it is acting up...

upon bootup - everything works normally, fast and "normal" but then within 5 minutes after bootup, there will be an audible "click" from the tower and the screen will flash quickly and then everything is frozen, ctrl alt delete does nothing. it needs to be reset.

upon rebooting, the same will happen... s works for a minute ... sometimes there is no click and no flash of the screen, but it freezes just the same.

in general, the computer works properly except for this! there are no other symptoms.

I have done a system restore (just in case) and it did nothing.


what is the problem?!?!?!

Power supply is my guess, but I know nothing!
THanks

[calmloki]

Power supply was my guess as well

[pundit]

"... Power supply is my guess..."
Sounds like it.

[smcgowan]

The cpu cooling fan. If the cpu is overheating it can do exactly what your describing.

[Spasso]

System overheat breaker.

This is why I just pack it up and take it to the guy that built mine in the first place. Pentium 4, 80GB, 768 RAM etc.....

He knows the machine, knows what I use it for and how I like it set up. Once a year I give it to him for a couple of hours, toss him 50.00 for the tune up and it's like I have a new computer when I get it home. He has been really good with the warranty stuff too.

I wish it was that easy with my car...................................

[SnakeyesTx]

Fans! Look in there and make sure they're working, not binding, turning slow, etc.

Did you try safe mode?

I'd start with the usual suspects like hard drive failure and registry issues.

You could get Registry Mechanic and scan it and see if there's any errors there causing a collision of sorts. Also there's benchmark programs out there that can test your ram, video, and cpu and hard drives.

If it were the power supply, there's a good chance it would reboot the machine after the click or blink off completely in spikes.

[SharkmanBMW]

there is only one extra fan in there... plus whatever is on the cpu... maybe it is stuck... I will check it out.

good info guys, thanks!

additional suggestions welcome!

BTW I did all the reg cleaning and a system restore even... nada!
It is hardware for sure!

[spyrot1]

Sounds like it's overheating... most likely the CPU fan is bad or the fan in the power supply has stopped. Run it with the case open and check to see if the fan is working.

[Randell]

i've never seen a power supply act intermittently, it's usually either fine or it's smokin...

the click may be from the hard disk.. when they hit a problem they usually freeze the whole machine.. i got a seriously loud click from a hard disk when i touched the 12v and 5v rails together while the computer was on...

have you run a chkdsk on it? go start - run and type 'chkdsk /f', it'll run a series of checks on your hard disk, the /f parameter tells windows to try and fix any errors it finds, though if it's a physical problem with the disk you're kinda stuffed

actually you probably won't get through the check if your machine is freezing every 5 mins! in which case.. you need another computer and start swapping parts in and out, or take it to a shop...

[Fetch]

overheating/psu/hard drive are all very likely based on symptoms.

I am leaning towards power supply because of the click sound and otherwise normal operation. Like others said, hard drives also click when dieing.