Computer freezes when my cat steps on it...

[Justiceinacan]

Hey all. My machine seems to be doing fine right up until pressure is applied to it - I don't put anything on it, but sometimes my cat jumps up on it. It just freezes...

It's a corsair AIR 240 case, which does have pretty flexible panels for something as expensive as it is. There IS a hard drive in the 3.5 inch drive bay which is on top, and my guess is that it is a safety mechanism to prevent damage. The machine will freeze and needs to be turned off and on manually. When turned on, one can hear an odd noise comparable to a human exhaling that isn't normally heard.

Is it the hard drive? Something fix-able or do I gotta try to find a way to obscure it from affectionate cats?

 

[Darthutos]

my bet is the constant cat thumping on the case caused damage to the mechanical hard drive.
is there a way to put future hdd into a spot not near the top of the case?
this hdd you have right now is not long for this world. the reason for the pc to freeze is because of hard drive failure (hence the sound)

 

[ko888]

There must be a loose connection of a data cable or power cable that becomes momentarily disconnected when your cat jumps up onto the computer case.

 

[Justiceinacan]

Sadly no, unless you let the hard drive just hang around in the case there's no way to put it in without it being reachable from the top. The same goes for SSD drives but the end he usually jumps up on before I shoo him off is the HDD side.

Currently the HDD is doing fine health-check wise, but I was planning on a larger storage upgrade as current capacity is running low anyways. It's not the end of the world if it's broken, I always back up my information.