PC power issues

Hi, I've read through several posts and, though the problem seems similar, none match mine entirely. About a week ago my computer turned itself off with no warning. That was the first time it had ever done it. Its always made a continuous beeping noise which I believe is memory related. That comes and goes so i've just learnt to live with it-it doesn't seem to affect the running of the PC. Yesterday I looked inside my computer as the sudden power downs became more frequent. No correlation between which programmes were running. I saw that my fan on the mother board was clogged with dust. The side panel has been off the PC for ages. The dust caused the fan to overheat so I cleaned that and figured everything would be ok. It worked ok for about an hour and then turned off again. Now im stuck because when my computer boots up, it asks me how I want to open windows (safe mode etc). No matter which option I choose, it just goes back to the first screen with computer specifications and goes in a circle again asking me which mode to start in. After a few tries, it seems to give up and turn off. I've checked for loose connections but cant find any. Any ideas?? I'd rather not have to replace the power supply if I can avoid it - seems tricky.

Cheers in advance

 

I think you have found the root cause of the problem, but fans themselves don't overheat. The component(s) they are there to protect (cool) can, however. It is likely that you have 'cooked' something due to lack of cooling. It is also possible that you simply haven't done a good enough job cleaning up yet. The heatsink (large chunk of finned metal) that the fan is blowing on may still be dirt encrusted and not performinfg effectively. Also dirt particles get between contacts as metal expands and contracts due to heating / cooling.

So the first and cheapest thing to do is to disconnect the power and take out the processor, memory and pci cards and have a good clean up. Rub the contact surfaces of the cards with a piece of paper - a 1$ bill is good. Don't stand on a nylon carpet when you do this. Clean out inside the power supply with a vacuum cleaner or compressed air.

The second thing to do is to post some details of your system.

If you have more than one memory module try restarting with only one inserted and and prove that the motherboard/processor/psu is still working.
Dont reconnect the CD, Floppy, Modem etc yet, just mouse, video and keyboard.
A good system should stabilise at the message to insert an operating system disk. Once this is established you can move on - post again.

Studio T