HP (Intel P4) problem

I have this weird problem. When I try to boot my computer, there may happen a variety of things:

1) it may either hang during POST
2) sometimes it passes POST but hangs before starting the bootloader (before lilo runs), other times it hangs when the OS should start booting.
3) it doesn't boot at all and makes beep noises (these are given a meaning in the manual of my computer, but I couldn't recreate the scenario to determine the amount of beeps since I noticed that).
4) It boots until lilo but my keyboard won't work so I can't select the OS I want to boot
5) It boots all the way and works more or less fine, but:
-at semi-random times the fans go real loud for like 1 second
-sometimes the screen (lcd) gets a bit flickery/blurry (when the cpu is used, and the fan gets real loud again
-at these moments when the fan gets really loud my keyboard sometimes won't work (also at some other random moments)

I downloaded this tool called Speedfan and CPU/disk temperatures are within normal range I think (50-60degrees celcius).

Anyone have a clue? (I did not touch the hardware and neither did I install any new devices).

What would the model and other specifications be............. it sounds like a laptop on first read?

It really could be anything:

1. Motherboard on the blink
2. Failing power supply
3. Failing video card/chipset
4. Failing RAM
5. Failing CPU
6. Failing HDD

I would say that it is running too hot at 50-60 Celcius

So,

1. Take it apart and make sure that the heatsink is clean and the fans are spinning freely.

2. Run Memtest86 to check the RAM

3. Reseat the videocard if there is one

4. Look at the CPU. Personally I would reseat it and use silver based thermal compound

5. Do a full scan of the HDD.

;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nihil

I would say that it is running too hot at 50-60 Celcius

1. Take it apart and make sure that the heatsink is clean and the fans are spinning freely.

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I agree with Nihil. I personally wont start trouble shooting a problem such as yours until all dust has been cleared from inside the chassis. In almost all cases, the removal of all dust will fix heating issues.

Try removing the dust. Letting your PC cool down for a bit, then boot it up and see what happens.

If this fails, you may want to run a diagnostic tool. A good one I use is SuperDiag from Eurosoft.