well, that's what I have...just upgraded my graphics card and new install of windows, and I had the same problem before, so could it be the ram or hard drives?anyone else ever have this problem?

Is the screeching sound coming from the speakers or the computer box? If from the speakers, I would check your sound card and its drivers. If from the computer box, then check fans and other items that have rotating parts.

>... so could it be the ram or >hard drives? Some motherboards produce a "screeching sound" as a "high-heat" alarm. Check your mobo specifications.Typically, the screeching alarm occurs when the cpu-fan fails. Did you upgrade in the same old case with a single power-supply fan? You may have to consider a modern case (dual-fan power supply, extra fan(s) in the case itself, front fan for disk cooling, etc.).Art.

Yes, I have had that problem a number of times! It is perhaps my most feared kind of crash, because everytime I reboot after it happens the harddrive reports bad sectors. After this happened a few times I found out how to fix the bad sector problem by doing a "chdsk /r" from the recovery console. However, the cause of the actual crash is still a mystery to me. It has always happened while I was playing a 3D computer game, and would freeze at no particular time with a screeching sound. The sound lead me to believe that it had something to do with the sound card, so I reinstalled the latest drivers. It happened one more time since then, but I fiddled with a few sound settings and now I've gone almost 2 months without the "screech freeze". Good luck in your endevour!-Derek