HELP!!! pc wont stop crashing

as above, recently my pc has been crashing alot, usualy while in listen to music.
but now its starting to do it more often and its driving me nuts. i cant think of any changes i have made that should effect it.
when it crashes, the screen just freezes, sounds sop etc and the keyboard doesnt responded, eg, the caps locks lights and num lock lights will be stuck on.
the only think i can come up with is a dodgy hard drive, it is getting old and has a tendency to not be recognised by the pc when i turn it on and sometimes while im using it (its just restarts)
can you guys think of anything it might be thats causing this, or would it just be best to buy a new hard drive?
thanks for any help

Jason

 

My PC does the same thing, not as much now since I got my new graphics card and it's usually during CPU intensive applications (F@H) it will freezer and if a sound is playing it will loop until the PC is turned off (hold switch) or restarted. Sometimes the sound will just squeal instead, I think it could be overheating, Maybe down to the northbridge...my CPU is at 40*C max (load while running F@H) and my northbridge runs hot anyway, maybe try and new Northbridge cooler?! That may not be the acse but I'm telling you what I've experienced myself as well as it's a fairly similar situation to yours...

 

Although I think my HDD is fine, it may be your HDD if it's old, what HDD is it?

 

its a: SAMSUNG SV3002H (27 GB)

came with the pc when a mate gave it to me, it has to be about 6 years old,
im going to see if the north bridge is hot, but i doubt it, ive got a pretty good cooling system (a shed load of fans)

 

Same here, 1 fan blowing over Graphics card/NB, one over RAM, 2 in PSU (1 is load controlled) CPU plus 120mm fan at the back sucking hot air out...have you got SpeedFan? that will tell you the temps of things...

 

north bridge (the thing with the small orange type heatsink on it?) did feel quiet warm

 

Use SpeedFan to check the temps, it may not be that but NorthBridges do sometimes get a bit warm...

 

that speedfan is a good bit of kit, more detailed than everest ultimate.
it says my hdd if ok and preforming well.
the three temps it give are 31C, 28C & -30C????

 

What are your systems specs, and especially what make/model/wattage is your PSU?

 

AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 754 with a 4400x2 heatsink
1gb pc3200 ram
500w casecom psu
30gb hdd
nvidia 5600xt 128mg graphics card
asrock K8 combo-z motherboard.
x4 led 80mm case fans and exhaust fan

could it be a lack of power that could be causing this, i have noticed that if i install one more fan, my pc wont startup. i am thinking of installing a second psu to run the fans off, just not sure where to put it.

 

Definately your power supply. Your 5v rail has extremely low amperage for that wattage range, so that PSU is probably putting out around 1/2 of what it claims. We see a lot of cheap/bad PSUs around here, so many so that we have a thread dedicated just to that. A bad or insufficient PSU can seriously and irrepairably damage your components, so I strongly recommend replacing that PSU with a superior one ASAP. I like Enermax, Tagan, Antec and Thermaltake PSUs.

 

i'll get a new psu as soon as i get the money, thanks for the advise guys

 

Yeah no problem, hope that works out for you.

 

tryed another psu and it still crashes, im gussing its the ram i got off ebay, im totaly fed up with pc building now, spent all my money and have nothing to show for it im going to start from sctatch next year and use the most reliable expensive parts i can afford and leave it at that. move on to the next hobby