Computer freezes

Lately I haven't been having any problems whatsoever with my computer, it's been running just fine. I've had this computer for quite sometime now, I built it in November of 2002. I've had little problems here and there but nothing extremely major until today. My computer was running fine this morning but this afternoon, it started to act up. I was working on a music project and then suddenly, my computer froze up. This doesn't happen very often or at all really, I can only remember this computer freezing less than 3 times in it's life. I restarted and it seemed like nothing happened, so I went on, kept doing what I was doing previously but about an hour into it, it froze up again. The first time I heard a little beep but the second time there was no beep at all. I restarted and got back to what I was doing but once again, about 40 minutes into it, it froze up again. Which brings me here.

What could be making my computer freeze up? This has just started happening out of the blue. I checked my temperatures inside the case and they are fine (around 45c while running). I have a feeling it may be my hard drives because of that first beep, but I know it couldn't be my secondary hard drive as I just recently bought that so it could be my primary hard drive as I've had that ever since I built this computer. Are there any applications I could use to find out whats causing these freezes?

 

anybody???

 

Do you have access to another PSU you could try?

 

That's exactly what I was gonna suggest. I had an Antec PSU that done this before. It was getting hot, but not exactly shuting down, just kinda lost a bit of power. It really had me stumped for a long time.

Antec replaced the PSU, but I just got rid of it & now have a Channel Well 425watter that hasn't ever given me a bit of trouble.

 

could it be a sasser or a similar infection?

 

In my old setup, I had a power supply that went bad but it acted a bit differently when it froze. When this setup freezes, everything turns very slow for a few second. Like your moving the mouse in slow motion and it's really hard to drag and then I hear a beep and it freezes.

I doubt it's software as I haven't downloaded anything new for a long time. I've just been using the same applications the last few years.

How could I find out if it is my hard drive? What tools could I run to find errors, etc.? About spyware, I run Ad-Aware and Spybot once or twice a day and an anti-virus about once every other day and I've always came up clean.

Also, what's the lifespan on heatsink fans? I don't think it really has anything to do with my current problem but I've been getting paranoid lately about it failing when I'm not around and having the CPU destroyed.

Thanks for all the help so far.

 

Power supply Suspect?
You have Maxtor HDD go to thier web site can download diagnostics program to test your HDD!