Computer Woes

[LJ]

I have (maybe had) an 8 or 9 year old HP desktop computer running XP.
It is my favorite computer (like an old pair of comfortable shoes).

Lately it looks like it's near death. Here's the gloomy tale:

Over the last three weeks the computer would freeze. Really freeze
where the only remedy was to reboot the computer. At the times that it
froze I could hear a low pitched howling sound that I could not
pinpoint. Matters got worse. It started doing the same thing during
the reboot process when loading windows. Then it got really worse. All
I got were the fans whirling, the ability to open and close the
optical drives (I have two), and the hard drive light staying on -
nothing else. No video, no ability to go into the BIOS, nothing, nada!
Here are the steps I took along the way to solve the problem:

1. Thinking the noise might be from on of the fans, I stopped them one
at a time to see if the noise would stop. No luck.

2. The computer has a motherboard which connects to the to the drives
via IDE cables which supports two hard drives; the "C" drive (100GB)
for programs and the operating system, and a "G" drive (500GB) for
data files. I disconnected the data HD ("G") from the system. No luck.

3. I replaced the "C" drive with its earlier version (40GB) that I had
used to clone the present 100GB "C" drive. No luck. In fact I receive
the error message "NTLDR missing." I then went back to the current
100GB hard disk - still with the same error message: "NTLDR missing."
However, I was able to overcome this by using Hiren's Boot CD. [This
is before the total failure I referred to above.] Also using Hiren's I
tested both hard drives - they tested 'good.'

4. After speaking with a friend, he suggested it might be the power
supply. I had bought a new power supply to keep on hand in case the
current one got fried. After putting it in, the new power supply
turned out to be DOA. (What else could go wrong?) So I a bought a
power supply tester and tested both the old one and new one. The
original power supply turned out to test perfect. (How accurate are
power supply testers? What' a top notch brand?) The new one not so.

Other than a defective motherboard which would necessitate buying a
new computer, can anybody suggest a fix?

One last question, 4 weeks prior to all this happening I replace the
data hard drive "G" with the 500GB drive whereas the original "G" was
a 200GB drive. Could this have stressed the system to cause the
failure?

Larry

[molosar]

Have you tried testing the RAM? Chips can go bad quickly.

[livewire]

sound Like a heat related problem could be the CPU fan power supply
fan. Check for air blowing out of the power supply fan see if it
moving air. Also check the CPU fan see if it spinning or moving air if
not get a can air dust it and clean out the Heat Sink, CPU fan. Same
goes for the power supply fan. As for the power supply being bad and
testing it with a power supply tester the tester may show good even
when the fan is working.
Try manual Spinning the CPU & Power Supply fan when the computer is
off you can usual tell if there is friction in the fan.
Try this leave the side panel off have a fan blowing directly in the
computer see if the computer shuts off or freezes up.