Computer freezes randomly

It's very possible that you ask too much from your psu. 400w is not a great deal and what you loaded on this computer might be too much. You should not run the psu (or any other electrical or mechanical component, for this matter) on the edge. It's even possible that the psu was somewhat damaged over time. It's also possible that your motherboard components became so hot that they were damaged.

First thing that I would do is to rduce the load and see if the computer stabilize. Shift the load between other perfirials to see that they all work. If you find that nothing is damaged replace the psu to higher rated unit of at least 600w.

Thanks for the advise Skeptic... Will do that. I'll keep you posted.

Ok, this is a very late reply, but better late than never...

I shifted the connectors and tried various combinations (molex connectors x peripherals) and found one or two that atleast allows the computer to run, without freezing. There was a time (recently, after I began this thread) when I added three more (actually 3x2= 6) fans as HDD coolers. Now, I'd like to know if fans actually take a lot of voltage or put a great deal of load on PSU? I removed those fans.

Now, this is how it goes.. I'm playing music on winamp which is on C:\ and I open up and browse through K:\ which is on another physical hard disk and the music kind of slows down and jumps... same happens to videos played from the other drive (any drives on the third hard disk). Is this because of a voltage issue? I just cleaned up the drives and the computer is a lot faster but the 'skipping' still persists, just as before. Any explanation?

... and it takes half an hour to burn a 4.7GB DVD at 8x....

I can post photographs of the side of the PSU (with the specs) and the interior of the case detailing the connections and hardware inside... If that will help in any way... If you could suggest (after looking at the photos) how I can connect the drives or fans so as to not overload the PSU and to properly distribute the voltage. Or if I even need a bigger PSU or a PSU with different voltage specs?

Really in need of help to get it all right!!

Regards,
AoM

Ok, this is an update.

I removed one hard drive, I mean physically disconnected it, and the skipping still happens.... I just took the photos, will upload them in my next post.

Here are the photos... please guide me as to what and how much I can connect on each rail... If there is something wrong or if there is an overload, please help me figure it out...

Everyone!!

I just figured it out!!! I know what the issue was!!! I just found it through pure trial and error as usual... I hope you all agree that at times, we just cannot figure out what the **** is going on until we mess around with the stuff, and I also hope you agree that at times most of us have replaced many components thinking they were GONE, when the actual issue was something frustratingly and painfully silly!!

This was not a voltage issue!!!! The drive on which the audio and video were skipping is a SATA drive... I just unplugged it from one port and put it in another SATA port (the motherboard has four SATA ports) and everything is fine!!!!

Could you please explain why this problem occurred!?!?! The data transfer was so slow and after I switched ports, it is all fine now!!!

Thanks and regards,
- AoM

Edited by AoM, 11 November 2007 - 08:17 AM.

Hi all,

Ok, now the skipping is happening on ANOTHER disk! But not the one on which it was happening before! Would appreciate some help! Please!

Regards,
AoM

I removed one hard disk, and the skipping still happens...

.. and this is an IDE drive!