HDD goes dead after 4-5 hours

diwali cleaning and i cleaned my closet the result a weird problem ....

my pc just hangs itslef after 4-5 hours of being on coninuously .... the first time i thought it just happened coz of some software malfunction but the sencond and third time i realized that the hdd red light on the cabinet stops responding which i assume is because the hdd stops wrking and hence the pc hangs .... so i hav no clue as to what is wrong .... any ideas

overheating problem?
what kind of HDD you have?Sata or IDE?

Suspects:
1. Cables
2. Overheating and Dust
3. Borked Power Supply

Open the case and check all the cables

80 gig - ide and 160gig ide ... the 1 that goes kaput is the 160gig

cables - ithought of that too and have chked that
over heating - u can cook omlettes on my hdds (nothing new been so for the past 2 years)
Power Supply - possible any way of confirming that

power supply:I don't think so cos who were using it before cleaning and it was workig all right.
cables:interchange 80gigs and 160gigs cables abd see what happens....it will locate the source of problem.

overheating:get a cheap big cabinet and some big noisy 120mm fans.total damages-not more than 1.5k.

the fans wont have much of difference as the cabinet is in a "cave" .... i will try interchanging the cables

^^yea do that.If 160 gigs stop working then its a problem with it if 80gigs stop working then its a problem with cables\power supply.

Even I have a similar problem, but I realised it was not the hdd. first 1 hr there will be no problem. but once the system starts to hang... then after every 10-15 minutes

. Called the technician today and he check and said that my IO Chip is getting too hot. also he said this may be a SMPS problem, so he will get me a spare SMPS and check what hapns..

IO chip

which 1 where .... SMPS looks like i will get it changed anyways problem or no proble

na not the HDD IO chip , the motherboard IO .. thats what he said... he he , I cant recall if northbridge or southbridge is the IO chio

.

even if mobo io chip gone means new mobo ...

^^^ my mobo got 2 more months warranty

I hope the vendor replaces the mobo quick

i think iv narrrowed down the problem to the psu .... today morning the pc hung as expected tried to restart it but the monitor light would simply blink with dvd rom working and mostly the hdds werent working tried re-starting a couple of times didnt work interchanged the dvd and hdd cables the pc booted till the boot screen and hung while loading the os then again the first problem monitor kept on blinking .... so fiddled with the power connectors and it worked for sometime ... its on now lets c how long .... but i guess im getting a new psu for my comp ... been along time since it got something new

I guess you may still have some dust around the processor/ram slot.

My case is also quite similar to iMav's ... now its not booting at all. Lets see what the technician tells

Update: new psu problem solved

^^ My PC is still dead.. Hope fully that technician will come tmro and fix my issue

he also says it may be a SMPS problem.

Charan said:
na not the HDD IO chip , the motherboard IO .. thats what he said... he he , I cant recall if northbridge or southbridge is the IO chio .

its southbridge for hdd controller