fading comp!?advice needed.

[dandare]

hey folks i've had my pc for about 3 years or so, from what i gather thats the general life soan of it bits. it is starting to go wonky. turn itself off/on occasionally. over this time i've added some ram and another hd. is it possible to replace the wonky parts(if poss. how would i find which parts are knackered?) or should i just get a new pc? everything is backed up, but would i be able to remove the additional hd i added and plug it into a new comp and see all my files? how do i save bookmarks etc.. should i need a new comp?what about password for things that the comp remembers ?
ta
dan

 

[wonko]

tbh the 2 components most likely to fail on ur average pc are psu and motherboard - and if the system is capable of running normally even for a while then the most likely candiate becomes the psu

most systems have seriously cheapo psu's fitted - to buy these costs under a tenner in most cases - when u consider a half decent psu will set u back £60+ then it should be obvious the quality of the ones used

most other problems can be fixed by a reinstall - assuming it hasnt been done already (3 yrs is a LONG time between reinstalls and would cause issues of it's own of the system was actually used)

so my advice would be to try replacing the psu first with a decent one - any new system u build would need one anyway so if it isnt that and you do go for a new system then it isnt costing you anything to try it

 

[dandare]

cheers for the reply, the only problem with that is that i've never tried to build a pc, don't know how hard it is and don't know if i have the knowledge to do so. i'm pretty good at putting things together, it's when programming/understanding what the comp. is doing why etc.. haven't a clue really. so if it's a new comp. then i'd be buying one complete. now the other thing is that i'll be getting a laptop soonish, so that may be my main comp.
i was hoping that if i could keep this one running for a while longer, cheaply, that'd be good.
so maybe i should just make sure it's all backed up on external drives, run it till it stop working, by that time hopefully i'll have my laptop with access to all my files on the back up unit.
other than my cdrive which is backed up. how do i save bookmarks, passwords etc.. to transfer to the laptop?