Random speaker noise & computer crash

[JamesD]

Hello. I'm having some problems with my pc. For a while now it has been randomly freezing - the majority of the time in games, but also when its under heavy load (for example, it froze during a test on Hot CPU Tester).

When it decides to freeze, I get a strange sound come through my speakers. It's kind of a digital noise, similar to white noise but more 'electronic' if you get me?!

I've tried various sound drivers, my graphics card has been recently changed from Nvidia to ATi and that has made no difference.

Please help!

[Hottentot]

Anything overclocked ? (CPU or memory), power supply make and model ?

[pepsi_max2k]

yeah an overclocked cpu could cause something just like that. dropping my fsb a couple MHz (though still ocd) solved a similar problem for me (it was ctd'ing or blue screening on load). do you know what temp your cpu is doing when it freezes?

[JamesD]

Nothing is overclocked, although the CPU was overclocked once upon a time. The systems getting on a bit now but is fine for my needs:

CPU: P4c 2.4ghz
Gfx: Ati Radeon 1950Pro
PSU: Thermaltake Butterfly 480w
Memory: 1.5GB (2x512 Geil, 2x256 Twinmos) [could that cause a prob?]

I haven't managed to get the temp when it crashes - would the best thing to do is go straight into Bios after the reboot? I do remember checking the temp a short while after it crashed and it was around 64c - which I thought was pretty high to be honest. Cheers guys

[peterb]

When it decides to freeze, I get a strange sound come through my speakers. It's kind of a digital noise, similar to white noise but more 'electronic' if you get me?!

The fact that the noise starts after the freeze indicates (to me) that it is a sysmptom of the freeze (the bus is doing unpredicatable things) rather than indicative of the cause.

Standard thiongs to check are memory (memtest86+) and see if any connectors are loose, or have moved (expansion and contraction as the box heats and cools over time can (occasionally) cause poor connections ).

[JamesD]

Right, cheers. I'll try running memtest and see what it comes up with.

I'll post back if memtest doesn't find a problem.

Thanks for your help

[JamesD]

Haven't got round to using memtest yet - haven't got any blank cd's and not sure how to do it otherwise! However, I think this is something to do with the same problem - my computer totally locks up when I try running motherboard monitor - and it never used to.

Any pointers?