What just happened?!

P

pazhman

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
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So I turn my computer this morning it's working perfectly fine. Then I go eat breakfast. Come back open up Firefox and BAM restarts by itself. It shows the Safe mode option or start windows normally. So I start windows normally and a blank screen shows. One time it just BSOD. I open up my case I notice some sort of fume. I can't tell where it is from but I think it's the Hard Drive. Anyone have and solutions? Thanks.
 
Could an overheating problem and you shouldn't assume it's your harddrive. You should monitor and provide your temps for your key devices.
 
It's a guess, but I say it's a mobo problem.

Normally that'd be it whenever a computer 'freaks out' unexplainably.

To give you an example, I've got a relatively oldish 7year old willamette P4 1.6Ghz, 512MB RAM and an P4VXMS ECS mobo on my other pc. Wait you ALSO have an ECS mobo??? Hmmmmmm

A couple of years ago my mouse pointer started freaking out. Running all over by itself till it stopped working. Issue solved by using the USB port.
Later noticed that to access bios I have to unplug keyboard before POST and replug it when I get the warning, otherwise keyboard won't work in bios.
Then I had something similar to you - I switch on the pc, it doesn't even get to the black window loading screen but just reboots as if the reset button got pressed. I leave it alone and like after some reboots (don't bother how many!) it loads windows perfectly. Some other times it loads windows well... but fails to load the driver not even of the mobo graphics, giving me 640x480 16 colours. If I remove the gfx card and use the onboard, it sometimes does that and sometimes does not. I've tested all components, even plugging in a different psu, ram... And in view of my previous problems I'd be ready to vouch that the mobo is to blame. I don't know how worth it it is to buy a socket 423 mobo (if I find one!) just to get it all to work.

One thing, before blaming the HDD download and run memtest, to exclude ram problems. Ram problems frequently cause the rebooting issue as well.
 
I doubt it's overheating. My motherboard is ECS (shitty brand). I'll have to check out memtest.
 
Well I just tried Memtest from a cd and now my computer will turn on for a split second and make whirring noise probably from the CD drive and turn off.
 
Does anyone know what the whirring noise could be? It's not my cd drive.
 
Noise could be fan or HD. Try turning on the PC with some of them unplugged and see if it goes away.
 
Try resetting your bios first to see if that allows your system to post. If that does not work, remove a component and see if it provides any beep codes (make sure you have your case speaker connected). If it beeps then your motherboard should be fine and you can narrow it down to something else. Do you have another system that you can test individual components with? The BSOD is probably a hardware error so you should try to narrow it down to a specific component.
 
As you noticed fumes after opening the case, something did get hot - very hot.
Take everything out of the PC and see what smells the most.
Inspect everything for burn mark or discoloration, ram included.
Its could literally be anything but I have seen more PSUs and hard drives go to PC heaven with burnt components.
 
I checked the hard drive it looks perfectly fine no burnt spots or nothing. The whirring noise seems to be coming from the PSU, after I unplugged the fan. I'm taking my computer to Central Computers for inspection if all else fails.
 
I'd suggest resolving drive doubts by removing all drives except floppy, and boot with a boot floppy.

Floppies are not popular these days, but I wouldn't build a system without a floppy drive for situations like this.

Hope this helps!
 
It sounds like a powersupply issue. Especially if there are fumes. I would find a power supply to test with.
 
Just tried another psu same thing, everything looks fine. I'm ruling the motherboard.
 
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