Freezing issues, clicking noise- motherboard prime suspect?

[marsbarz]

Hello there,

I've been encountering certain problems with my computer for quite a while now, I believe the problem originates from the motherboard but I'd like to hear what you guys think.

I'm using an old Aopen AK75 motherboard with an (underclocked) AMD AthlonXP 2400+

The first peculiarity I encountered was when I first upgraded from a 1ghz tbird to the athlonXP, I tried setting the FSB to 133mhz so that I could get the correct frequency, but the computer wouldnt POST properly. I switched back to 100mhz fsb and let the thing run underclocked at 1.5ghz.

After a while some odd things began to happen, specifically when I ran anything that was processor intensive, or perhaps used up a lot of ram (even though I have ~1.3GBs of ram)- my computer would promptly power down. I thought perhaps this had to do with either the power supply or the actual electricity that was being supplied through the socket.

I tried isolating the problems, I switched rooms and I switched powersupplies, I removed one ram module after another, I ran memtest, an so on- the same problem persisted.

Now however, my computer doesn't power down, it freezes. For example I run a game which requires a good sum of resources, and halfway through I hear a click and then I believe the hard drive powers down and starts back up-- after about 15 seconds the computer freezes and the mouse doesn't move.

I replaced the hard drive and I still heard a click before the computer froze, but my original hard drive is the unit that sort of powers down and powers back up after the clicking noise-- I might try replacing the hard drive with yet another one and see if that solves the problem but I'm pretty sure the motherboard has a problem.

I'm not sure what I should do, so any help would be appreciated. If you want any more information that I can provide, please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rugger]

List all of your original specs and what parts you replaced them with while troubleshooting. Are you getting any BSODs? U clean of spyware/adware? All your drivers updated and games properly patched? When was the last time you cleaned the interior of your case?

 

[marsbarz]

The motherboard is an aopen ak75

Originally this computer started out with:
AMD T-Bird, 1ghz
256mb DDR266 ram
Geforce2 32mb videocard
There's also a 10/100 lan card, a 56k modem, and firewire card, even a soundcard even though this thing has integrated sound (all four on expansion slots)
30gb hd
330 watt powersupply

Right now it has:
AthlonXP 2400+
1256mb DDR266 ram
Radeon9250 256mb videocard
Same lan card, 56k modem, and firewire card, soundcard
Same 30gb hd
Same powersupply
===
I replaced the powersupply with another (both were 300w)
I replaced the HD from a 30gb(WD) to a 40gb(Samsung) <- I will have to try this a second time because I am formatting the 40gb and I think it will do a better job of telling me whether it's the HD that is faulty or the (I suspect) motherboard

I didn't replace the videocard
I removed the old 256mb ram module
===

I'm not getting any BSODs, I run spyware/adware checks frequently and I am clean of them, as far as game patches go, well, it wasn't just one or two games, basically anytime there was a high load on the computer- for example when I ran a game and had my browser window open and I was also listening to music, etc.

The interior isn't that dusty but I don't know if there's any specific procedure for me to go through to make sure that I've cleaned every place I'm supposed to. The last time I cleaned it was when I popped it open to try and figure out why it was freezing.

 

[marsbarz]

It seems I was mistaken, the motherboard was not the problem, the hard drive seems to have been the culprit.

First time I've experienced to infamous "click of death" :?

Thanks to everyone anyway =]