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Hello everyone.
my pc specs:
windows xp home sp2
amd athlon xp2100+
1.74ghz, 1gb ddr ram
geforce fx 5200 256mb AGP
gigabyte socket A mobo
3 harddrives,(50gb,120gb and 300gb)
the 50gb has windows partitioned on the first 10gigs...

My pc will out of nowhere just crash. It could happen when im browsing, burning or just when its idleing. When this happens, the monitor goes out first for a while, then about 5-10minutes later the whole pc crashes. Im thinking its a psu issue. My psu reads 14A on the 12v rail...i know thats below standards, but im not sure if thats not enough for my setup. I checked to see if the psu or anything else were getting too hot, but eveything is pretty cool to the touch, except for my 3 harddrives. they run extremely hot...too hot. any ideas people?

Hard drives can get very hot with poor circulation. I have all my hard drives actively cooled in all my PC's. They're barely warm to the touch after running constantly.

14A on the 12V is not below any standards. The voltage could be below standard. 14A is not a lot but it's not terrible either. Have you been having these problems since the beginning or did this start recently.

Have you added any new hardware recently.

Have you checked the voltage on the PSU to see if it's within specs? You can use something like Motherboard monitor to get an idea how it's working. It may not be exact or even accurate but it's a place to start.

the crashing has been going on for about a year now. I added the vid.card im using now in september, thinking that it was a video issue...could still be a driver issue though..no idea. i updated the driver from nvidia and it seems to fix the problem then after a lil while itll crash again. The only thing that seems to let it boot back up after a crash is when i unplug the pcu from the board and plug it back in. Thats why i think its pcu problem. Im gonna go to fry's later today and buy a new pcu...if that dont work, i can just return it....my next step if that dont work is a re-install of xp.

what do you mean by ''ACTIVELY COOLED''?

Let us know how the new PSU works out. Make sure you get the correct type for your motherboard and components.

Actively cooled using fans. I have 80MM or 120MM fans in front of all my drive bays.

10 gigs for an XP Home partition? where are all your temp files going? What about the temp files when you burn CD's? IMO get partition magic and make that 10gigs larger, preferably 25. I agree that only an OS should be put on a partition by itself. But with that, without some changes being made, the temp files will go to that partition as well. I'm not sure if you burn CD's or not, but when you do it writes the entire CD image to your temp files folder prior to burning. Also Windows makes peridoc back ups of itself which go to your OS partition.

ive had it with a 10gig partition for a long time now, and havent run out of space. And yes i do burn cds, and dvds everyday.
C:total size 9.76gb
C:free space 4.71gb
its never gone past 6gb

well, i shelled out 85.00 for an ANTEC SMART POWER 2.0 500watt PSU yesterday.
+12v1=17A
+12v2=19A

So far, so good. It seems to have fixed the crashing. Woohoo

This is a great powersupply, highly recommended.