PC randomly freezing up - Hard drive or CPU>>??

[zeacron]

Ok I took an old family computer that was bought back in 2003 and pretty much upgraded it for my own personal use. It basically works like a charm except for one small problem. The computer itself seems to randomly freeze up for periods spanning from 5 seconds to 30 seconds. When this happens a repetitive clicking noise takes place within the computer at the same time and until the noise dies away the freezing persists. Once the sounds fixes, so does the freezing and everything goes back to normal. The freezing takes place randomly throughout the day when i use the computer and sometimes the freezing becomes so consistent it happens again immediately right after it has already corrected itself. This problem is very annoying to the fact when I play Worldofwarcraft I randomly freeze and have to wait for the computer to fix itself, therefore in some cases i end up dying. It is also frustrating because even when Im ONLY using simple applications such as Mozilla Firefox the same problem happens and I have to wait for the application to load. Earlier today, I grounded the computer and I decided to open the computer side panel, and only run the PSU plugged in to see where the repetitive clicking noise was coming from. It sounds like it is coming from my harddrive but Im not completely sure. Could it be my processor messing up instead? I did run a my computer/properites/manage scan on hard drive and computer says it is in healthy condition and the clicking noise seems quite normal since it doesn't sounds like the head or anything is damaged. though I believe the computer is thinking too much for its own good.

Here are my computer specs:

Intel Celeron Processor - 2.4Ghz
1GB DDR RAM
160GB harddrive (barely 40% full)
NVIDIA Geforce 8400 graphics card 512MB
onboard sound card
250W max PSU

- I would install more RAM but motherboard maxes out at 1GB capacity =(

--I believe this problem is fixable I just don't know where to start. I have ran multiple virus scans in safe mode and defraged and have concluded this must be a hardware problem.

-please any ideas or info would help
thanks

[jlreich]

It may be the drive going bad, but it sounds more like the system is running out of physical ram and has to go to virtual ram (on the hard drive). When that happens it is basically freezing up while it is getting the data.

To help, make sure you don't have anything unnecessary running while playing the game.

In short your system is severely straining to play the game. Might be time to think about a new system.