Can someone help me with a dying CPU?

[danielg]

My computer has just gone dead, making a steamtrain engine noise with both green and orange lights flashing, does anyone know what that means please (ie will I lose the contents of my harddrive :( ? :mad: Two desktops and one laptop breakdowns in the past month :mad:

[ashyr]

sounds to me like 1 u have bad power condition?
do u have spiking power? lights flicker alot? maybe the spikes are killing your mainboards or ruining your powersupply, in this case if its the computer that died, no you will not loose your stuff on your HDD, you might loose your operating system and files andinstalled progs etc. because if you end up changing your MB or faulty peices WINDOWS will think the computer hardware system has changed and may not load windows. needing re install.

if the CPU is making a high pitched noise. like even higher than a boiling jug. then this i have found in the past usually means yes, dead CPU, it could be cables rubbing on the cpu fan? also if you dont clean your computer regularly it will heat up faster and can lead to electrical faults when there is sufficient dust. i use a vacuum cleaner with a fine nossle head. then hold the fan's still and suck the crap up. lst time i did it i got so much settled dust it was insane. lost about 6* on the clock also. =D

[heretic]

Yes it does sound like the power supply is the issue, but it's hard to tell from your description. Or something serious is on the way out such as the motherboard. I would use a DVD burner in future and backup once a month important files to DVD. Here's a general rule: Retire desktop computers at 3 years and notebooks at 5 years any usage after that is borrowed time.

You could always take it to a computer repair shop, an independent one and pay for a diagnosis, if it is the power supply it shouldn't be too expensive to replace.

Also, if you don't own one already, GET A SURGE PROTECTOR! Even a basic one and always plug computer equipment into it.

[i_am]

I had a similar problem a while back and, yes, it was the power supply. It didn't cost all that much to get fixed.

Hopefully that is all it is :)