My slave drive.....

[starfish21]

some years ago my pc just didn't come on,took it to repair shop to be told my mainboard was gone,he fitted a new one and things were fine...for a year till the same happened again,different repairman ...same story,18 months later...same again.this time i was told i needed to protect my pc from 'power surges' which can cause damage.so i got a surge protector and its been over 4 years with no probs.i got a new system 6 months ago but i make sure that i use the surge protector always now.

[Phuzzy4242]

Strange as it may sound, the case can be a problem. I've worked on systems with intermittent problems and swapped parts that "fixed" them - but only for awhile. Move everything to another case and the problems never come back. Flimsy cases let the motherboard flex or vibrate. Probably not an issue if your PC is "name brand".

I like Entec cases - easy to get into, solid, relatively inexpensive, as plain or fancy as you like, good power supplies.

[Guest]

Strange as it may sound, the case can be a problem. I've worked on systems with intermittent problems and swapped parts that "fixed" them - but only for awhile. Move everything to another case and the problems never come back. Flimsy cases let the motherboard flex or vibrate. Probably not an issue if your PC is "name brand".

I like Entec cases - easy to get into, solid, relatively inexpensive, as plain or fancy as you like, good power supplies.

You mean Antec cases???

[Phuzzy4242]

You mean Antec cases???

Yes, typo

[Debaser]

Well lots of great tips guys. Thank you

Luckily practically everything is backed up!

The PC is about 5 years old now, not inc a few upgrades over the years: power supply / HDD's etc.

I really want to avoid splashing out on a new system, although I would prefer a new PC to replacing parts.

I shall wait until it stops running for good.

[Debaser]

Since the weekend I last posted in this topic I have had none of the listed problems, and its all down to getting rid of AVG.

AVG used to be brilliant, but over the last few years updates have been very glitchy.
The last AVG update was shite. I can’t begin to tell you all of the problems with it, but the forums say it all.

Its all very strange, but from the moment I freed myself of AVG and installed Panda Cloud (highly rated & harshly tested free anti-virus), my PC has been running beautifully.

[Phuzzy4242]

Since the weekend I last posted in this topic I have had none of the listed problems, and its all down to getting rid of AVG.

AVG used to be brilliant, but over the last few years updates have been very glitchy.
The last AVG update was shite. I can’t begin to tell you all of the problems with it, but the forums say it all.

Its all very strange, but from the moment I freed myself of AVG and installed Panda Cloud (highly rated & harshly tested free anti-virus), my PC has been running beautifully.

It's good to know to cross AVG off my "potential free alternative" list. I used to swear by McAfee but it's shite now. Norton used to be good, if a little too aggressive sometimes. I've tried or used at least 20 different AV programs, and though I keep an AV program on the machine, the antispyware programs always find and stop the bad guys 10 times better than the AV programs do. I've run side-by-side comparisons on known-infected machines and the AV program may find 1 or 2 infections while Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, and Spybot each find 20 or 30 on the same machine. The worst thing is that many AV programs wrap themselves around the OS in so many ways they're almost like a virus when you have to uninstall them.

[starfish21]

been a dedicated 'bitdefender' user for years now.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

[BizarreLoveTriangle]

Unlikely that AV causes HDD clicking noise, though

[Debaser]

Unlikely that AV causes HDD clicking noise, though

I have to agree of course, but for now thats all I have to go on.