odd PC problem

[JamesB]

for the last few weeks my PC has been acting up.

I will hear a single "click" sound coming from the case, then the system somewhat locks up. The mouse still moves around, but I can not click on anything to open op programs or files. If the screen saver kickes in during this time I can move the mouse to go back to the desk top.
When I move the the mouse over the system tray or star button, it goes from the normal pointer to the "resize" cursor. a few minutes later I will hear another "click" and then I can go about my business on the PC.

system is a home built AMD system with Windows XP SP3

any ideas on what this could be?

James

[Torrey]

Just a guess...overheating?

[Jim]

sounds like the hard drive is ready to retire.

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by Torrey

Just a guess...overheating?

The click's could be a thermal breaker turning something off until it cools down, then turning it back on.
Might open the case and blow out the dust and be sure all fans are working.

[JamesB]

I will blow the inside out and see if that helps and I will check the fans. they all sound like they are working. I try to keep it clean, but with 3 cats in the house, there is no telling whats in there.

James

[chano]

i must say that you need to back up your system asap. seems like ur HDD is halting and the pin is dropping.....


I had a professor in college that once said..."the day you load anything onto a hard drive, is the day it starts to fail" ...

Until we totally adapt solid state technology, make sure to keep your data backed up.

[rages4calm]

Sounds like the hard drive to me.

[Torrey]

Occassionally when I add a new card or hard drive, I'll whip the vacuum cleaner out and go over everything inside the case with the brush attachment...just like new!

[Torrey]

Originally Posted by rages4calm

Sounds like the hard drive to me.

Come to think of it, my brother had an old HP Pavilion that did something similar, and it turned out to be the hard drive.

[adirty1]

I am going with the hdd.

[Rson]

If you hear a click from the drive, Run and back it up.

A pit on the platter (the click you hear) gets larger and larger everytime it is clicked.

Be on the safe side and BU everything pronto.

I would clean out the case also. Check the wire routing, sometimes the wire will touch the fan and click away also.

[C!LLY]

yeah, I've replaced like 3 HDD in the past 4 years and 1 of them was acting like that. what I did to rule that out was to borrow a HDD from a friend and put it in my system to see if I had the same problem, if not then it's the HDD.

[douge]

Don't be like the young lady that called me at Dell, Sunday night after Thanksgiving and wanted to know what that clicking sound was. Her HDD failed. SHe lost everything and most importantly her term paper. NO BU. Sent a new HDD but it was toooooo late.

[JamesB]

yes it was the hard drive. I was able to clone the drive, but I cloned it to a bad drive.....so I went and got a new drive and Im am back in business. Took me a while to get the original HD to work long enough to clone it, but all is good now.

the HD was one of those raptor 74gig 10,000 rpm drives. Its still under warranty so I will send it off for repair and just keep it as an emergency disk..

James