Computer has rebooting problem

[friesian]

I had a problem with my computer today. It is working again, but I
would like to figure out what happened as I think something probably
needs to be replaced soon. I'd rather get it fixed before it totally
quits working.

I tend to let it run for a few weeks at a time. There was some
lightning, so I shut it down this morning and unplugged it. I've had a
microwave and printer ruined in the past. I do have a special outlet
and a surge protector, but I still feel better with unplugged. When I
went to reboot it, it turned on, made some running noises, but did not
boot up.I tried 5 times with no luck. I went to work.

After work, I tried it again. The first time, it didn't make many of
the normal sounds, just ran a little and quit trying. The power supply
was on, but the hard drive wasn't running. The second time, it made
the normal sounds, CD drives, hard drives, etc. Then it did some dd
random sounding beeps. I rebooted again, and this time it came up with
a check disk procedure. It did that and then booted up nicely.

Several months ago, I had some odd beeping problem. It would randomly
give me a single beep, which got more frequent. Like once or twice a
minute. I learned that one reason could be overheating, so I took it
outside, and used a can of air to really clean everything out and make
sure all the fans were running okay. The beep stopped.

I have noticed a few beeps today.

I am going to take it outside for a cleaning in the next couple days.
It's raining right now. I have bad allergies, so I am not going to
spray a bunch of dust inside.

Does this problem sound familiar? Does it just need a cleaning, or
would something be dying? Or should I be rebooting it more often?

 

[friesian]

Might just be a weak cmos battery

should be 3 volts

if lower, replace it

if you have no meter, I'd probably replace it anyway they are cheap and
can be picked up at the local drugstore

It has started beeping more. Different sounds and combination. At
first, it was just when I was actively doing something, and not very
often. But in the last few minutes, it started doing a whole bunch of
loud beeps. Several per minute, even when I wasn't doing anything. No
typing, no using the mouse. I have no idea what it was reacting to.

I decided to reboot it, and that was a mistake. I've tried 6 times so
far, and it hasn't come up with anything yet. I should have at least
copied my email to my other computer. But the beeps were so loud and
frequent that I wanted to shut it up.

Does the beeping sound like another symptom of the cmos battery? Or do
I have something more serious going on?

Looks like it is booting up again now. I will see how long it goes
before the beeping starts. It was doing fine for about 24 hours.