PC taken a serious hit

[Castout]

Umm I'm suspecting the CPU's failing. Can't really recall the beeping tone which is actually a code.

I'll apologize through my blog if it wasn't due to hacking. I wouldn't blame myself though for quick to point my finger at certain party. Past experience made me otherwise it wouldn't be wise not learning from the past. The only thing I learned is never trust anybody especially that certain party

[Reece]

Strange but if you have the same problem in XP and Vista I would guess at some hardware problem or if the internet then you don't have a good enough firewall/virus scan setup, I certainly would recommend using an app like Norton Ghost, this way you can rebuild very quickly your whole system, then see if the problem is still there!

[Castout]

Hmm if it was hardware problem from the beginning the problem would not disappear for the whole year .

My firewall is good enough.

I noticed a sudden spike on CPU load on Friday and right after that a command prompt like windows was run and two minutes after that the PC just reboot.

The symptoms are the following:

Random restarts

Blue screen of death or BSOD after random restart

CPU spiking full load under no particular reason several times and continued that way until restart

BIOS hang

BIOS failed to load(black screen) after random restart.

Power turning off when BIOS loading happened once today

Most often when just starting the PC for the first time in the early morning or a few hours after that.

Games now run at half performance that it used to rendering them unplayable, other than that it's okay.

Shutting down once today, then beeping sound, internet kept failing to connect until one or two hour later.

Sounds in game now crackling and only sounds in game that's crackling

Windows failing to load a few times

Quite a lot of times Vista would load much longer than usual and control would be lost until network icon appears to be connected(online)





Ran memory diagnostics and memory was reported to be fine
Benchmarking Vista didn't change the Vista index experience.

Ran AV everything checked out no malware or virus reported though I know there's a very high probability of a malware that CIS unable to detect since it would sometimes and often enough cause the screen to switch to desktop even when a full screen game was running. My suspicion grew stronger after a friend who connected his usb suffered the exact symptom on his Windows 7 laptop that the screen suddenly switching to desktop as if a program just started itself. If it spread then it's definitely a virus or a malware.

Protected with CIS all the time

Ran registry cleaner regularly

Umm I wasn't planning to get myself a new rig at least until next year this could ruin my plan.

My suspicion s either CPU, PSU or GPU failing or worst PSU failing that's already damaging GPU.
I'm hoping it's just the CPU which is failing.

That or hacker attack.
Or hacker attack that damaged the PC.

[Reece]

I and many others have had nothing but trouble with Registry Cleaner, I use Norton Win Doctor and have no problems, I have tried Registry Cleaner a few times (different versions) and after use the computer slowly died, very similar to what you are reporting, just bear this in mind!

[SteamWake]

The only surefire trouble shooting method would be to wipe the drive and install a clean operating system.

But first it does sound like a hardware issue. Check the fan / heatsink on the CPU make sure that it is properly seated. Sometimes also the heatsink paste will dry out and break its contact between the cup and heatsink.

If its a socket 775 it is real easy to knock the heat sink loose so its not properly seated onto the cpu and will lead to this kind of behaviour.

[kiwi_2005]

LAst resort: Reformat the PC reinstall windows and see if problem persist.

[AVGWarhawk]

I suspect you have RAM failure on one of your memory sticks.