Ok, this is not a super important question, I just want to know if indeed my power supply was the problem.

In the last couple days my computer started freezing at random intervals after startup when one of the hard drives would click off, and then click back on. I lost a few files because of it, specifically all my bookmarks in Firefox(!!!), so I asked around to find out the problem. Every computer store I went to said the same thing..."your hard drive is about to fail". I was a little freaked out because I have a busy week at school.

So I went out and bought a new SATA hard drive and controller card (because I plan on getting a new MB in the next year or so, and want SATA hard drives) and I decided, I might as well get a new Power supply...because thats something I wanted, and to me seemed to be just as reasonable an explaination to the problem.

Installed both things, but am still using the original hard drives (so haven't changed the setup), and since then the computer has not had the problem.

Could this problem have all been due to the PSU? And if so why now, why not 3 months ago?

System:
P4 1.3GHz
Intel D850GB MB
384MB PC800 RDRAM
Pioneer DVR-106
older LG CD-RW
WD 60GB 7200RPM IDE drive
other 40 GB hard drive (old)
MSI GeForce FX5200 VTD128 video
D-link PCI Wireless card
4 80mm case fans
2 cold cathode lights

Added
WD 160 GB 7200RMP IDE drive
Promise 150 TX2plus controller card
Enermax EG465P PSU

Removed
Old PSU was Turbolink LC-A350ATX PSU

So nothing spectacular, but I am wondering if all the stuff on my system wasn't running close to the max of what my old 350W psu could handle.
All this happened right after I tried connecting 2 monitors to my video card...like a few hours after.

Anyways, I'd be interesting in finding out what others think, and whether or not I should bother transdfering everything to the new hard drive.

Thanks

I don't recall ever having a power supply partly fail. They tend to quit completely. I have seen hard drives get intermittant failure. This one is just waiting for you to drop your guard. I would keep using it till i dies but might want to have a backup.
I have seen the power connector to the drive have a loose fit and cause the drive to temporarily stop. You might have accidently fixed that when you replaced the power supply.

I have seen power supplies fail in this way. What seems to be happening is that one of the voltages starts dropping below the necessary value that keeps the system running properly. Then things start getting, um, flaky. Cycling the power after the system freezes sometimes help but only for a while. My experience is that once this starts happening, it'll recur with increasing frequency until the PSU just craps out completely.

I have one rack mount case that's on, at least, its third power supply. All of its predecessors failed in this way. The last time it began during an upgrade and I thought that, perhaps, the media was flawed as the install was coming up with read errors on the CDs. Initially thinking it was a memory problem, I booted from a floppy with memtest and it died almost in a matter of minutes in random places. Sometimes on the first test, then some later test, sometimes it never even got the initial screen displayed before it froze. Once the PSU was replaced, no more problems were encountered.

On the bright side, the original poster now has a new chunk of disk space for the next semester's term papers.

My experiences with PSU failures are like homey's -- things work, or fail completely, but then again I've only had 2 PSU's go south on me. In any event, if I were you and one of my hard drives had been randomly misbehaving, I wouldn't trust it anymore regardless of whether or not it still exhibits that behavior. In other words, Yes, I'd agree with the assessment that "your hard drive is about to fail". Maybe there was some sort of faulty cable connection or perhaps the behavior was the result of overloading your PSU, but my recommendation to you would be to backup your data if you have not done so already, and if you choose to continue using the drive, don't be too surprised if it just dies on you. (Which probably will be at the most inconvenient time possible.)

A few years ago a coworker had a drive that started to make some clicking noises

Me: You should get that drive replaced, it sounds like it's going to die
Him: Nah, it'll be fine.

He "fixed" the problem by banging on the side of the PC with his hand and amazingly, the noises stopped and the machine worked just fine.

Until about 4 months later. The drive suddently started making a sound sort of like when you're a kid and put a baseball card into the spokes of your bicycle wheel, and about 15 seconds later that machine was totally DOA. Too bad for him and the project he was working on. Why take the chance -- J.W.

4 PSU died on me the last six year, in the city i used to live. In one case(the first) the leds worked fine the, PSU's fan worked fine the motherboard biped at startup but the pc did not boot. I upgraded my pc and then i realized that the PSU was to blame. I think u should keep the hard disk but make sure u keep regular copies of things that are really important. My important projects i have them on my both hd's a cd and the univercity account. A PSU may seem to work and send wrong voltage to devices and cause problems. I learned that the hard way. IMHO whenever there is a problem in a PC the PSU should be the first thing to check

Thanks for the replies. Up until now I thought PSUs would generally just shut down the computer when they started dying, but this was definitely weird. I have realized that my conclusion that the hard drive is not the major culprit may be flawed too because I have been running with the sides of my case off since I installed the new PSU, so if it had something to do with over heating then I've got a problem still, but otherwise my computer has been running for 24 hours straight without the problem recurring, compared to the 20 minutes to hour that I was getting 2 days ago.
I'm still having minor video card issues, but not as bad as before, but thats a something that I've only tested in WinXP and not linux, so until then I'll keep those questions at the appropriate forum.

Thanks for responding, and I hope this doesn't happen for a good long time with this new Enermax PSU...by the way, anyone have an opinion on whether Enermax is a good PSU brand...and even more, how does it compare to the new Vantec Silent PSUs (black aluminum things with 3 fans I believe). Those two were about the same price but I had no info on the Vantec, and a few people recommended the Enermax.

My favored choice for both cases and power supplies is Antec, such as the Antec True 430 It's hard to get all that fired up over a PSU but this one is excellent. Just my 2 cents -- J.W.

I should mention I really like the number and length of the cables on the Enermax PSU. They are more than long enough to take the long route to any drive or fan.

i had the problem once where i just had enough on the power supply that it was causing the computer to reboot from either overheating or failure to provide enough power to the machine. so i added another (not aesthically pleasing) power supply from an old gateway that sat in the case and used it to power all of the ide devices. everything else was powered by the original power supply. the case was in an office with poor air circulation and this was a smaller (only meant for desktop purposes) case with a very small power supply.