I have a 3 year old comp that recently has started to freeze up on startin g the comp. The comp usually starts to buzz near the powersupply as the system FREEZES. I tried swapping the power connections from the power supply and also tried swapping out the hard drive with no success. I pulled the CMOS BAT and memory to TRY and clear any possible faults but alas it still freezes on start up. After about a HALF hour of starting and turning it off i can get to the desk top but then it will freeze yet again. Am I looking at a bad mother board or bad processor? Any cheep hints I dont want to dump a lot of cash into it, I already have a new comp, just wanted to make it a kids comp. Thanks, Shawn.It sounds like the fan in the psu may be bad ( the buzz you're hearing). PSU's are pretty cheap but you get what you pay for.. check www.pricewatch.com for prices. You'll find that you can get a power supply for under 20 bucks.
I'd also check that the cpu fan is turning as well.
If the fans look ok, strip the machine to a bare bones configuration (boot DISK, ps, video card, mem, keyboard/mouse) and try to isolate which device may be causing the problem. If you can't change the symptoms, psu is the likely culprit. (Don't over look the mem sticks as a possibility. If you have more than one, try one at a time or try swapping them around).
If you're not comfortable working inside the case, I suggest you find someone who is to do these things.
Good luck.
Maultier,

Thanks for taking the time to help Shawn out, Maultier makes great suggestions and we recommend you follow his sugestions Shawn.
Try replacing or adding ram. If not then slow down the clockrate of the cpu.

Good luck,
Sometimes......... Sometimes, you can have a hairline crack in one of the traces on the circuits in the computers. I found this to be the case on one of my systems, when I physically bent the board one way it would work, if I left it alone it would lock up the system after it was on for a few minutes. This can definately be one of the reasons you're having this problem (albeit not the most common). Try what the others here have suggested first and consider this a last resort solution, if it's really a crack I can garantee you'll never find it. It's usually a board replacement at that point.

Oh Yeah.... I'm Cool