problem solved! but need helping choosing a power supply

[mikelish]

I have an Athlon Xp 1800+ (with AMD retail fan and heatsink) and it has worked great for about a year now. This morning when i woke up, my computer was beeping constantly alternating a high pitch with a low pitch. I have a biostar m7viw motherboard which uses Award bios. When I turn the computer on, it only stays on for about 20 seconds before it shuts itself off and starts beeping. It does not matter if i go into bios, or if I load up XP, after about 20 seconds it overheats and turns off. The CPU fan definetly works, and there are no cables blocking its movement.

I havent done anything different to the CPU in the past year, and I have never overclocked it. I am not sure what to do, should I just get a new fan or heatsink?

P.S. I have unplugged everything except the keyboard, power cord, and monitor cable from the computer and I still have the same problem.

Thanks

 

[xbassman]

I'll bet your HSF is clogged up with dust...

Pop open your case and blow out all the dust with a can of compressed air.
If you have intake filters clean them out also.

If your case is in an enclosed area of you desk this is contributing to the problem.

There are other possibilities also, but I would start here.

 

[Unforgiven]

either the hsf is clogged with dust, unplugged or not functioning at all.

 

[Delorian]

Not a Power supply issue, either the video card's HSF or CPU HSF is overheating, check for dust build-up and remove it.

 

[mikelish]

ok, thanks for the replies, i tried everything mentioned and I still didnt have any luck. the problem was my power supply died. so now I need to buy a new power supply. i'm not sure what to buy except I know I need something more powerful than a 250w (thats what I had when my problem started). If someone could advise me on a power supply i would appreciate it, here are the specs on my computer:

athlon XP 1800+
512mb ram
80gb hard drive
15gb hard drive
generic dvd-ROM
generic cd-rw
gf4 mx 440

Thanks.


P.S. If anyone cares, here are some boring details as to how I solved my problem

I tried to convince my friend to let me put my processor into his computer and try it see if my processor was fried or not. He wouldnt let me. He did however give me an old athlon processor but he wasnt sure if it worked or not. It did not work for me. So I took some advice from another friend who said to smell my power supply, to see if it smelt burnt. It did kinda so I took a power supply out of an old computer I had laying around and hooked it up to my mobo and there was no beeping, and I had no other problems.

 

[Big Lar]

IMHO, Buy the best damn supply you can afford. You can pull it out and use it in the next setup. I use PCPOWER AND COOLING, they are expensive, but IMHO the best.

 

[daveybrat]

I don't think that with that setup you have that you need to spend a fortune.
I found a nice 420Watt one for you here:

Thermaltake Purepower 420Watt

This is a high quality power supply at a reasonable price.
There are even better ones out there, but you don't need more than this for your
setup!

 

[warcrow]

I have an Enermax Whisper 460-Watt and am loving it.