troubleshooting - computer shutting off randomly

[plunix]

Ok im cutting and pasting this so its going to be sloppy, and i dont have much time right now im leaving my hosue for a big but here goes.

My comp freezes and headphones make a SCREEEEEECH noise permanently, sort of like the computer speaker beep except its like claws on a chalkboard haha.

I disconnected SOUND CARD and it does the same thing, but through the computer speaker. Sometimes no sound happens, simply freezes.

This happened a first time in world of warcraft yesterday, froze my comp. Then now it makes the screech and I initially thought it was a heating problem and put my ram on the window ledge to let it cool because it was unusually warm but the problem persisted the next morning.

I did a disc error check on boot, nothing came up... ALTHOUGH it took a few tries to get through a full check because my comp would randomly shut off during it.

I have classic mode toolbar set up in my windows (win98 style taskbar) often now when i reboot the new modern smooth edged blue one will load without changing settings. Could this be my harddrive causing the problems, loading these improper settings makes me believe so but i've never encountered this problem before. I'm probably going to pick up a new harddrive anyways, sooner than I expected to but I hope it fixes my problem. I'd appreciate any feedback thanks.

 

[pwnage]

How long have you had your computer? and How large is your power supply?

im thinking maybe your not getting enough power to the machine I could be wrong though.

Also check the voltages in the bios.

If there are any other symptoms let me know.

 

[CD]

Ok im cutting and pasting this so its going to be sloppy, and i dont have much time right now im leaving my hosue for a big but here goes.

My comp freezes and headphones make a SCREEEEEECH noise permanently, sort of like the computer speaker beep except its like claws on a chalkboard haha.

I disconnected SOUND CARD and it does the same thing, but through the computer speaker. Sometimes no sound happens, simply freezes.

This happened a first time in world of warcraft yesterday, froze my comp. Then now it makes the screech and I initially thought it was a heating problem and put my ram on the window ledge to let it cool because it was unusually warm but the problem persisted the next morning.

I did a disc error check on boot, nothing came up... ALTHOUGH it took a few tries to get through a full check because my comp would randomly shut off during it.

I have classic mode toolbar set up in my windows (win98 style taskbar) often now when i reboot the new modern smooth edged blue one will load without changing settings. Could this be my harddrive causing the problems, loading these improper settings makes me believe so but i've never encountered this problem before. I'm probably going to pick up a new harddrive anyways, sooner than I expected to but I hope it fixes my problem. I'd appreciate any feedback thanks.

Check all your fans as well. I'm more inclined to think it's a fan seizing up which is in turn overheating your system and causing it to reboot. Take a long piece of rubber hose or something similar and put it against any component you think may be the problem and listen through the opposite end. It should help you to better discern which part is failing.

 

[plunix]

well in truth its not shutting off totally, it only did that during the disc error checking during initial bootup before loading windows. once in windows, more often in a video game, its actually just freezing and my headphones end up emitting a SCREECH or some sort of pulsing sound that reminds me of an old pc speaker noise.

its a vantec stealth 400w im quite sure.

most parts are about a 1.5 years old, self built

i switched with my sisters p/s and this problem happened once... which kind of scares me that buying a new p/s will not fix the problem

but besides that one crash after switching parts, it did let me run world of warcraft without crashing and any graphically intensive game

im going to buy a new power supply tomorrow, hopefully i can return it if it doesn't fix my problem heh

 

[nobly]

well in truth its not shutting off totally, it only did that during the disc error checking during initial bootup before loading windows. once in windows, more often in a video game, its actually just freezing and my headphones end up emitting a SCREECH or some sort of pulsing sound that reminds me of an old pc speaker noise.

its a vantec stealth 400w im quite sure.

most parts are about a 1.5 years old, self built

i switched with my sisters p/s and this problem happened once... which kind of scares me that buying a new p/s will not fix the problem

but besides that one crash after switching parts, it did let me run world of warcraft without crashing and any graphically intensive game

im going to buy a new power supply tomorrow, hopefully i can return it if it doesn't fix my problem heh

It kind of sounds like a power issue to me. It doesn't sound like overheating, but to make sure you can open the side panel and get a big fan and point it in there. Since its 1.5 yrs old, and you haven't made any recent hardware/software changes have you?
If you haven't, it really sounds like a PSU issue. I've had that happen to me before, and after swapping processors, mboards, and HDD's did I finally narrow it down to the PSU. (On the bright side, I basically ended up with a 2nd computer there)
You should see if you can borrow a PSU checker, then check all of the voltages. I've seen a PSU waver in voltage - the 12V goes down to 10V then up to 14V then down to 6V, and thats always a bad sign. So check it over 10 seconds on each voltage line.

 

[Deluvia]

I have the exact same problem! First I hear the screeching noise (loud static that scares the begeezus out of me) or some weird sounds.. then the computer freezes and I have to reset. During some episodes, my computer refuses to load windows, gives me some sort of error, and I have to reformat or load windows again. (Which is where I'm at now, except it says that my disc is either damaged, unformatted, or full... so can't reload windows.) It seems to happen especially under heavy load, but sometimes happens during normal/light loads.

I never figured out where the problem comes from. It's not the sound card... cuz like in your case, the same happens using onboard sound. I was told it could be my motherboard, but am not sure about that either. My powersupply is questionable, so if you get a good one and your system becomes stable, please let us know. I'm very interested in knowing what could cause something like that.

 

[scottdkp]

Hmm .. I remember this being a common issue at some point... and I remember having it myself but I can't for the life of me remember what I did about it.

Basically what happened was the system would freeze and the speakers would fire out this crazy loud screeching noise until I rebooted.

It was one of 2 things I think..

1) I had a Sound Blaster Audigy OEM card.. I remember needing to reinstall the drivers from the creativelabs.com website to fix something.. I know for a fact the card was buggy and every once in a while emitted a loud blast of static (they wern't grounded properly from the factory).. but there might have been this screeching problem associated with it as well..

or..

2) Something in the back of my mind remembers reinstalling video drivers to repair a sound issue.. you might try completely removing and reinstalling your video drivers. I had an ATI card that decided to conflict with my sound system and caused these horrible lockups.. at least thats what I vaguely remember.