PC won't turn on, occasionally.

A

aliensRreal

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
166
I have a PC in my possession that was involved in a power surge. The PC fails to power on occasionly and I simply cannot recreate the error. I tested the power supply voltages and things were fine, but when running a test supply everything worked fine for the rest of the day (probably 20 attempts to power on.) Now I threw a completely brand new power supply in the machine and on first try nothing worked. Same symptoms, not even a wince of power. Let it sit for five minutes came back and the machine booted up no problem.

I have run a troubleshooter that tested mobo, memory, and CPU. I have also taken out all PCI cards and memory to see if it would help, nothing. When I did this the PC powered on perfectly fine.

Could it be that the motherboard is failing?
 
The most common thing that can be happening is that you have a short somewhere in the system. A short can be created by even the standoffs that hold the motherboard up can initiate a contact.

Another note as well, it could also be your motherboard since it was involved in a surge, and it could also be your hard drive since HDD's are notorious for this.

Do a test with only one stick or RAM, CPU, HDD, and PSU all out of the case (Not on the carpet) and see if it turns on 100% of the time then.

If not, then can't really help anymore without many more specifics.
 
Thanks for the quick assistance, but I can't even get it to fail when everything is all set up in the case. It seems very spiratic and if it were a grounding problem wouldn't this issue be more consistant?

I am actually leaning towards slight damage to the motherboard due to the power surge. Especially since it happens rarely and I cannot recreate the issue with any combonation of situations.

Also, why would the machine work fine after leaving it alone for a short period of time?
 
chkdsk the HD and memtest the RAM, also let it prime and make sure it doesn't restart so you can isolate the power problem to the occasional turn on. If everything checks ok, try ghosting to a temp HD if possible.

A bad HD can definately keep a system from turning on (never leave it plugged up when inspecting boot problems) and seem to run fine in the OS.

A stick of RAM can be iffy as well allowing volatility in booting ability and minimal desktop interference

Priming will assure the CPU isn't missing a lick every so often, alloting time will assure the problem happens only on startup

It sounds like the mobo to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top