I think some hardware connections are loose on my Dell

[JohnnyC]

Hi

 

I'm new here!

 

I've a old dell Dimension 5150 running XP pro sp3. It seems to have gone a little temperamental when I moved it about.

 

Recently its been making a loud buzzing sound I found that if I pushed a little pressure on the side of the case it stopped the noise. So I rigged up something to push on the side of the case. This worked to keep it quiet but caused the computer to crash after a couple of minutes and then restart. It then repeated this crashing behaviour again and again. It kept on crashing even when I removed the pressure from the side of the case. However it stopped crashing when I opened the case by removing the side.

 

I guessed something somewhere is loose.

 

I've now removed the RAM and HDs and cleaned connections and put it all back. So it working for now. But is temperamental.

 

Also I've had this loose hardware connection and crashing problem twice before with this computer. Each time after I moved house.

 

Any ideas what I can do to stop this temperamentality for good!

[Ray1000]

I'd leave the side of the case off and wait until the buzzing starts again ... I'd be surprised if it's the RAM or the HD ... then try to identify where its coming from ... my money would be on the power supply unit.

 

Ray

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help,

as well as Ray's suggestions have a look at the fans, is there any dust accumulated round both the fan or fans and the fins of the heatsink which is mounted on top of the CPU.

 

Clean all that out if there is first, then check that the fan or fans are actually running, also when the cover is on, is it maybe pushing a wire or cable against the blades of a fan, it may be that which makes the noise, and pushing against the side of the case could have stopped the fan.

 

That will have allowed the CPU to overheat, hence why the constant crashing.

 

Nev.