OT----computer problem

Please bear with me, I don't know some of the proper computer words.
I have been having an ongoing problem that is getting worse. I have a desktop HP computer that is about 3 years old, and it will just freeze up and cutoff. Sometimes it will start working on it's own, but now it will not come on at all. The monitor ? will not connect to the hard drive.
I have internet security essentials, super anti-spyware, malware and all are run regularly and only occasionally catches something.
One thing is different today, It will not connect and, with volume turn off, there was a series of 4 faint beeps--pause---4 more and this continued. The beeps were coming from the hard drive or whatever you call the item where Comcast cable hooks up.

Check out the document at the link below. It has a lot of good information, plus it lists the "beep" codes used by HP.

Your problems sound like overheating. Start by vacuuming the inside of your cabinet real good. In particular, clean up the CPU heat sink. That will be a very large chunk of finned aluminum on the motherboard, probably with a fan on top. If your computer uses the standard ATX case, there will be a big air intake right over the CPU.

The four-beep error code indicates a power supply problem. If cleaning out the case doesn't help, the next step is to replace the power supply. If you have an ATX case, standard power supplies are available everywhere for reasonable prices. If your HP uses a proprietary case, you'll probably have to get the power supply from HP, which means it probably won't be cost effective to fix it.

Just a comment on nomenclature: What you're calling the "hard drive" is called the "case". It contains the motherboard/cpu, hard drive and power supply. It may contain a few other goodies such as a video card as well. Generic PCs mostly use the "ATX" form factor cases, which means you can easily replace or upgrade components. But some of the bigger manufacturers use proprietary designs that can't be upgraded and are essentially throw-away items.

If your PC can't be fixed, you should still be able to remove the hard drive and copy any files you need off it.
HP beep error codes