Computer Freezes

[flaVius]

My computer is making very angry, the smallest agitation to the case causes the system to lock up. Small such as me plugging in a usb cable or flicking the case with two fingers. At first I thought it might be that I was overloading my system, Ive got five hd's hooked up (1/2 terabyte) and 5pci cards. I removed 4hds and any cards that werent essential and the computer still locks up if i barely bump it. I dont think its the PS because its about 4mo old. I figure it has to be the CPU or the m-board. But im not sure and hope someone has some insight. If i run a prog that really hogs cpu like counter strike it will lock up then too, otherwise it will run fine till i bump into it. Before this ordeal i used to be able to let my comp run for weeks at a time without having to restart it. Heres the specs Win-xp, 2.4ghz intel, 768mb rambus, radeon 8500 vid card, 350w PS, gigabyte motherboard.

 

[Inaris]

Have you checked all of your connections? Sounds like somthing is loose or just barely making contact. Might want to gothough and check everything. make sure there is nothing loose, or that the conectors on the Mobo are loose, or worse broken.
Also, try pulling the ram, and run it one chip at a time though. could be a bad stick as well. Also, check to see if the CPU is floating in the socket.
Keep us posted.

 

[ekÆsine]

5 hard drives and 5 pci cards!!!! wow, you have a lot of stuff connected to that power supply, you may be overloading it. you should consider getting a quality 450-500 watt power supply at least $70-200.

 

[Shakie]

It sounds like you have a short. I woud take out all components and clean out the case very good. Make sure that you don't have any bare wires or any wires that are loose [or maybe even a loose screw].

I would then put each component back in one at a time being very careful of the wiring and making sure that each molex connector is in the socket firmly.

This could also be your power supply as suggested, but if you took out all components, except the minimum required and it still did it, then either your power supply is bad and not just overloaded or there is a short.

Let us know what you find.

 

[ekÆsine]

just reread your question, i guess that rules out a power supply problem. check for shorts like guy suggests. maybe their is a short with a part of the motherboard to case?

 

[flaVius]

Well my heatsink was embedded with more dust than i thought possible but that wasnt the problem. It was a pci raid card that my burner was hooked up too. Its really weird the card appears to be fine but I guess something went bad on it. I guess I should have brought my system down to the bare minimum earlier (1hd,1vid card, and a keyboard), i just didnt think that a pci card would be the problem. Thanks for the suggestions all.