[OT] flaky power supply?

[Michael Hipp]

Andrew Gould wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> When I booted up my sister's computer, I heard an occasional click.
> It reminds me of circuit breaker tripping, but not as loud.  When it
> occurred while Windows is booting, the "busy" light that goes back and
> forth paused, then continued, but the computer didn't finish booting.
> When it occurred after boot up was complete, the computer would pause,
> then everything would go flaky (Windows Explorer would fail, for
> example.)
> 
> The computer no longer successfully boots up as a config file is now "missing".
> 
> Is this most likely a power supply problem?  Could it be a hard drive
> or motherboard problem?

I fix/troubleshoot this kind of mud all day. My money would be on hard drive 
failing. Could also be a failing fan. Could just be Windows has corrupted 
itself horribly. (This is a routine everyday event.)

Seems lately that all PSU problems I see are binary (work/don't work; no 
in-between state).

In any case, the first task is to take the hdd out and image it on a Linux box. 
Don't do anything else until that has been accomplished.

Michael