[cjem]

Hi, thanks in advance for taking a look at what i've got to say. I'm new to this forum but have posted elsewhere on the same problem to no avail.

While gaming, my PC suddenly locked up and had to be reset. In the post, upon rebooting, i was notified that BIOS settings had been defaulted so i went back in and set them all back to their proper configuration.

Anyway, saved changes and exited to receive an audio message (i have an asus nForce board and it does this normally) that my CPU fan test had failed, yet upon inspection the device was working fine. I not only checked the fan rpm and temps in bios after this but opened up my case and had a look... no apparent issues.

I then restarted again to find that the machine locked up at the WinXP loading screen at the same time making a sound i'd never heard before. A Click, then a sort of powering up sound like the whine a cd drive makes when beginning to read a disk but much at much higher speed and pitch *difficult to explain*. It continued over and over again at about 8-15 second intervals until i again reset the machine. I immediately thought that it must be the fan failing but upon inspection it was not.

This time around i booted in safe mode and managed to get into windows and to all diagnostic tools all components appeared normal. cpu temps, voltages, fan rpm, hdd etc. but the same sound as described earlier continued, except when there was no activity on the computer at all... checked the cpu activity in task manager and when absolutely nothing was going on the sound stopped but as soon as i moved the mouse to close task manager it began again.

Anyway, i shut down the PC and attempt to boot normally but it continually locks up at the winxp loading screen with the same sound as described earlier, unless booted in safe mode.

If anybody has any insight as to a possible problem or fix i would much appreciate the imput

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Could that unexplained sound be the HDD ? It would be best to give it a thorough test. Download Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test(DFT). It comes in an ISO file format that must be burned to a CD using Nero, Roxio or the free CDBurnerXP Pro. You need to make sure the BIOS's device boot order is such that it tries to boot from the master optical drive before it tries to boot from the hard drive. When your computer boots from this disk check the S.M.A.R.T. status to make sure it is good. Then run the full disk drive test. This test won't erase any data on the drive.

Don't assume that the BIOS was reset properly. You can completely reset it by taking the battery out for a minute and then replacing it. You'll need to at least set the correct date-time and also set the device boot order.

Edited by WinCrazy, 28 April 2006 - 07:25 AM.

[WinCrazy]

Could that unexplained sound be the HDD ? It would be best to give it a thorough test. Download Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test(DFT). It comes in an ISO file format that must be burned to a CD using Nero, Roxio or the free CDBurnerXP Pro. You need to make sure the BIOS's device boot order is such that it tries to boot from the master optical drive before it tries to boot from the hard drive. When your computer boots from this disk check the S.M.A.R.T. status to make sure it is good. Then run the full disk drive test. This test won't erase any data on the drive.

Don't assume that the BIOS was reset properly. You can completely reset it by taking the battery out for a minute and then replacing it. You'll need to at least set the correct date-time and also set the device boot order.

Edited by WinCrazy, 28 April 2006 - 07:25 AM.