PC Freezes - now won't start up

[tango645]

I recently upgraded my PC this past September. I had purchased a new AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200, an Asus Motherboard with AM2 Chip Support, A Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS - 256 MB - for a PCI x16, and two sticks of A-Data 512 MB 240-Pin, DDR2 RAM. I swapped out everything except for hard drive, Optical Drive, power supply - 520W, and a case fan. Also, I have it running Windows XP Home with SP2. It was working great for a while. I was able to play games and everything. Then a couple week-ends ago, it started acting up. At first it would just freeze up on me in the middle of a game or even just on the desktop. I would just shrug it off, reboot, and continue. But it kept getting worse. It would happen more often, sometimes right after Windows boot up. Later, I went into BIOS to set default settings, changing back my CPU frequency to normal (I only overclocked it from 200 Mhz to 220). But that didn't help. Other times it would freeze while in BIOS. Also, sometimes after I started it up, it would shut off on me within 1-2 seconds. Now, I can turn it on, but nothing appears on the screen. No BIOS, no Windows, no beeps, nothing. I have no idea what could be the problem. I tried resetting CMOS by switching the jumpers on the motherboard. It worked once...I was able to get into Windows, but then it froze again and now we're back to nothing. I was just wondering if anyone could give me some insight on what might be wrong. Thanks.

[street1 (RIP)]

Your problem is probably your CPU overheating.

You need to take it out clean it and the heatsink and
reapply thermal paste.

Watch the below video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVJ5ZEbf6F4

[tango645]

Did exactly that and still nothing. Not sure if this is worth mentioning, but here goes - In case it helps, whenever my PC is on, I can't open the DVD drive or Turn off the PC by holding down the power button. Since the problem, I've been having to switch off power completely with the I/O switch on my Power Supply. Also, my friend mentioned to me that it might be a problem with my HD or possibly the RAM. The RAM is brand new and the HD is about 1-2 years old now. But, I wouldn't be surprised. Hope this helps.

[patio]

How old is the PSU and who is it made by ? ?

[tango645]

The PSU is only about 2 years and a month or two old. It's made by Apevia. And like I said, it's 520W.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817148009

[patio]

The first customer review stated " it died a quick death with no warning"...
At any rate borrow a known working one of the same wattage or greater and swap it in there to eliminate the PSU as the culprit.

[tango645]

That might be a bit of a problem. Is there any way to test the other peripherals first?

[patio]

Not accurately if you are having power issues.

MemTest is a free DLoad and will test your RAM...

Free diagnostics for your hard drives are available from the HDD manuf. site...

DXDiag is included with Windows and will test the video...

But i would still do the above with the PSU.

[tango645]

I thought I had stated my current situation before, but to recap, I can't even get into windows let alone the BIOS settings. I turn it on and nothing happens. I know about memtest and all those, but I can't perform the operations. I guess my only result is to try and swap out parts until something clicks. Anyway, thanks for the help.

[patio]

PSU first...