As the title indicates, I have no idea what my problem is other than being a tad too good looking for most girl's taste

Srsly, I have two PCs. 1 is the brand new uber-pc and it is running great, but my "old trusty" that I still rely on a good bit because its the PC I let my GF and friends use to keep them away from the big-rig. And I still use it for certain apps as well.

So "old trusty" is about 4yrs old and is built of:

cpu: p4 3.0
hdd: 120gb seagate
RAM: 2GB Corsair (4x512Mb)
gpu: evga 7950 gto (z-tweaked v9147)
psu: thermaltake 500w
mobo: intel gav915

So this is the same hardware thats been it for a while now. Added this PSU when the last one went out about 20 months ago and since then its just been running as is.

Until about a month ago when a problem arose. Whenever I go into a multimedia app, the PC is now prone to freezing. Some times it just freezes without any visual indicator (sound just stops and mouse is frozen) and sometimes there is a thin yellow and black band that goes across the top of the screen when it happens. However, I should note that is has fronzen a few times without doing multimedia (just surfing web and bam!).

I cannot Ctrl+Alt+Del or anything. It is frozen! I have to hold the power button down for 10 secs to get the PC to power down. I have checked the connections, all of the hardware is securely in place, fans work, temps are normal range, etc etc.

I cannot find out how to stop this problem. I have resolved every problem thats ever come to this PC, but I'm lost on this one. The black band made me think it might be the graphics card, but its temps never exceed 55c under load and around 48c idle.

I'm lost, please help

First thought - dry joints and dust.

Open the PC - push/wiggle everything.

Report back

Also please download this heat test:

Your PC temperatures can be tested by downloading from here:

Download SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

Thanks so much for helping.

Before starting this thread I did pop the case and gave a wiggle test. Everything is secure from what I can tell.

I just downloaded Speedfan and it is currently reading:

CPU: 53/54c
Internal Temp: 44c
Remote Temp: 44c
HDD: 35c


But I will say this - when I popped the case earlier for the wiggle test I decided to turn it on with the case open to see if all the fans were operating and from what I could tell they were, however, there was a slight noise that seemed to be eminating from the PSU, but I was not 100%. It kinda sounded like a fan was making a faint grinding noise somewhere, but I couldn't pinpoint it.

And yes, I had to pull dust wads out of the case. This hardwood floor house just sends dust balls straight in the intake. I just moved here 60 days ago.......so........

May be dry joints/dust?

I'm beginning to lean in the direction of the PSU. Not wanting to remove the 1,000w Corsiar out of the bigrig because its huge and would be a major pain in the ****, is there a way to test this Thermaltake 500w thats in this one without removing it?

In other words, assuming it is the PSU, how can I find out for sure before trying to send it back to Thermaltake under warranty?