What the fudge is wrong with my computer?

[Yggdrasil722]

I was playin some starcraft, listenin to some mp3's when all of a sudden, the computer freezes for about 10 seconds and I keep hearing a clicking sound (two clicks, pause, two clicks, pause, etc. Kinda like a heartbeat). It unfreezes, then after 5 seconds freezes again. No sign of it coming back to life so I reboot, only it freezes again. Not good. I decide to turn the computer off, open it up, and make sure everything is fine. All of a sudden (luckily when I wasn't touching the innards) the computer turns itself on (stupid me forgot to unplug it). It freezes up a little loading up, then runs scandisk. Only problem is, it's stuck on 0% for a lil while before it reports a disk error. After a long time and lots of pseudo-freezes, it boots up to windows and now I'm posting about it.
Some other problems include the CDROM not always being detected. Also, in Counterstrike, whenever I hold down 4+ keys at the same time, I hear a clicking sound (but only single clicks, not like a heartbeat) whichever key I depress first gets 'stuck' in that the computer still things I'm holding it down even though I'm not.
WTF is wrong with my computer? I'm thinkin it's the crappy mobo I have cuz my CDROM and HD have never had problems with my other (old) mobo. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[blueghost75]

check to make sure your IDE cable(s) are snugly plugged in. It sounds like it might be loose. Otherwise, it could be that your harddrive is going dead. Post your systems specs, that should help.

 

[Yggdrasil722]

I doubt the HD is at fault cuz it worked fine until I switched mobos. But here are the specs:

AZ11 mobo w/800 Duron (no OC)
256MB PC133 CAS2 Crucial RAM
MSI GeForce 2 MX
8.4GB Western Digital HD
onboard audio
40x Memorex CD-ROM
Linksys ethernet card

 

[4824guy]

Clicking noises usually come for HD's that are starting to fail. You should probably thing about getting a new one and backing everything up before it dies completely. See if the HD reports any errors, or try runnin the WD testing software. A Clean O/S install might sound like a good ide also.

 

[WarCon]

All the symptoms you mention are signs of a failing hard drive. If your hard drive is really close to something else i.e. no air flow, see if you can mount it somewhere else that it can get better airflow. Getting it cooler might help for a while, but usually as soon as you hear the clicks the head has slammed the platters somewhere and it don't take too much longer for it to really get bad. Thorough Scandisk or WD diag to see if you already have bad clusters. If you do, then plan on affording a new hard drive and soon if you have alot of MP3's on it.