computer died...need some help

[ackduf]

So, I've been out of the world of computers for a while.  I have a 3 year old system that died the other day.  I was planning on getting a new computer anyway, but before I mess with everything I have a question if anyone can help.

I was downloading some stuff and came back to check on my computer, and everything was going super quick.  The clock was even ticking away minutes about every 10 seconds or so.  I tried to restart it, and it just came up with a dead black screen.  I turned it off, and it never turned back on.  My question, if it is possible to know this, is would this be a virus or did my hardware finally just throw in the towel?  I want to know so that I can hopefully safely get the info off of the hard drives/use the hard drives with new system safely without risk of infecting a new system.  If it was hardware, then that's no problem.  If it's a virus or something else, then it could be tricky.

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide!

[patio]

I'm not aware of a virus that will cause these issues...
My first suspect would be the PSU.
But your first priority before swapping things in and out should be to retrieve your data.
You can safely hook up your hard drives as slave drives one at a time in a working machine, preferably with a burner so you can copy/burn your important stuff.

To be on the safe side scan your drives in the other machine with a solid AV and malware scanner just to be safe...

Then borrow a known good PSU of the same wattage or greater and swap it in there to see how things run.

[BC_Programmer]

Did you know of all the little chips on the mobo, the most likely chip to become faulty (after processor, integrated GPU and integrated audio), is the Timer chip? an interesting fact in this circumstance....

[patio]

The OP has not returned in 10 days.