Problem with GA-M59SLI-S5

[errantlawndart]

Please bear with me as this is lengthy. For that I apologize.

I have a computer that I built myself two and a half years ago, with the following specs.

Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5
AMD AM2 4600+, no OC.
nVidia GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB, no OC.
2 GB RAM, no OC.
Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit

Last night, I purchased Spore and installed it. When I went to go play, it went through its opening sequence fine, and got to the actual gameplay portion. I clicked once, and my monitor went blank and into "sleep mode". I thought I had just had another video driver crash, as it happens sometimes. However, the display never came back. Sound from the game was still playing, although I couldn't tell if it was looping (indicating a frozen game) or not, as I had been playing the game for less than 10 seconds when it happened. I did a hard reboot as nothing else was responsive, and when it booted up, it got to the pre-loading loading screen (for those familiar with Vista, when the green bar is at the bottom). After that, the screen went blank as normal, but almost immediately after that the monitor went into "sleep mode" again. The computer itself made typical noises as if the boot process completed. Keep in mind that I had been playing World of Warcraft for a several hours prior to this, and have had no issues.

My initial thought was that the video card had gone out. To be sure it wasn't a power issue (or, at least as sure as I could be with nothing else to test) I tried plugging the other 6 pin connector into the card, and it still didn't work. Today I took it to work and plugged it into a brand new machine there, and it worked fine.

After getting home from work, I tried the other 2 PCI-E slots, and neither of them even got to the point I was at before. When I put it back into the original slot, I got nothing as well. Added into the mix, the computer starting making a strange noise when I would power it on. Excuse the laymans terms here, but it was a beepish noise, followed by a lower-pitched beepish noise. Not a POST code.

I'm stumped as to what is going on. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pat]

maybe the PSU.

 

[megamanx00]

Sounds like the kind of noise a taxed power supply makes. Could be your power supply is going out.

 

[errantlawndart]

Is there anything I can do to test it before I go drop the cash on a new power supply?

 

[errantlawndart]

As a quick update...

I went and bought a new PSU (Antec Earthwatts 650w). For reference, I have an Antec TruePower Trio 650w. I put it in, and nothing changed, although the beeping noise was not present. I will (hopefully) be returning the PSU this afternoon.

Also, as another detail to add to the mix, usually when I have to power down the computer, I have to hold the button down for 3-5 seconds before it will actually power down. Now, when I push the button it immediately powers down.

If there is a better place to post this, let me know.