HD problems or something else?

Hi, I was hoping I could get some advice on this. I have had this custom built pc for maybe 4 month now. Up till now I've had no problems with it at all. Recently however problems arised where my hard drive seemed to be failing. It would start trying to read / seek, and in doing so produce a short audible beep (just 1) then stop seeking and try again. Sometimes the same would happen again until it finally managed to read, each time making this beep. This seemed to get worse over time, and also when this happened the pc would often freeze, sometimes the mouse pointer would become invisible (only a restart cured this). The beeps got more common so I ordered a new hard drive, which unfortuately seemed DOA (making lots of clanking and clicking noises constantly). While waiting for a new hard drive I have since been using an old 80gb hard drive from my old pc. This is the same as my failing drive (seagate barracuda) but with less space (80gb as opposed to 160gb). At first all seemed fine with this, until just now the same thing has started happening to this drive I have noticed... Am I just being unlucky with HD's here or could it be something else? I'd like your opinions please... My Mobo: ABIT AV8 PS- Tried looking up error codes on motherboard site but it appears to be down for me at the moment.

Is there some way to monitor your +12 and +5 power supply voltages? Do you have an extra PSU to try on this computer from the old one? What size PSU are you presently using?

Have you checked your PSU ? When Google isn't your best pal

I have not checked my PSU, I admit it is something I have thought about. My current PSU is 500W, here is a link to the exact one: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=61308 gilloz, not even sure how I would do that :/ I do have an old psu from my old pc, but it is something like 300W, and as such definately would not be enough to power my newer pc (was fine for the ye olde one which didnt even have a gfx card), so I guess I cant really try that. If I were to get a new psu to try I was thinking the following might be enough?: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=103515 Thanks for the help so far, I have had it suggested it could be the mainboard but I sure hope not, psu is a lot easier and cheaper to replace... What do you think?

sorry for the double post but something I thought of which is probably worth mentioning is that the pc seems fine when left idle (no beeps etc). When browsing the net it makes the beeps every now and then usually when trying to load a webpage, not always, but maybe every 20mins or so it'll start doing it while trying to load a site. It seems worst when I try to play a game, to the extent when trying to load a level it can go crazy constantly gives these short single beeps, then I hear the hard drive spinning down, then it spins back up again and tries again until it eventually manages it. If the game has a loading bar you can see how slowly it takes to fill and load the level when this is happening.

How are you connected (broadband) to the internet, ethernet or USB ? When Google isn't your best pal

I use a typical wired connection straight from my phone line (with microfilter of course) which in the end plugs into my USB modem. No router or wireless connection, pretty basic setup really.