Temperamental Boot-up

[Retinal]

I lost my old PSU in a thunderstorm accident (I know Ishould have had anti-shock protection but I didn't) and got a new PSU. It works fine except that some times my PC doesn't boot up, let me explain.

It usally happens if the PC's been off for a long time. I Push the power ON button and the fans/hard-drive lights ect come on but theres no BIOS beeps and the montior does not power up. The reset buttons doesn't function and I have to hold the power button in for 3-4 sec for the PC to power off. Then I leave it for a while and then try again, the next time it work fine and boots up. :-/

On a side note, before the thunderstorm/PSU failer XP took about 20secs to boot up, now it hangs on a black screen for 50-60 secs then shows the loading screen and carries on booting as normal.

It's all a tad strange, any idea whats going on?

[lawtai]

I'm wondering if it could be your cables...

[Retinal]

Cables...do explain.

[youm0nt Veteran]

do you have a pentium 4 motherboard?if so maybe you need a connector called 12v+ it has 2 black cables and 2 yellow cables in a square shape.maybe you need to plug it in?possibly something else was damaged in the thunderstorm.

[Shibby]

maybe the mobo got a little shocked

now i seen this topic time to look at investing in to them sockets that wou'nt damage ur pc

[Retinal]

I'm running on a InnoBoard m/b using an AMD 1.4. I too thought something else may have gone wrong in the thunderstorm but the strange thing is that it only fails to boot if the PC's been switched off for a long time.

I'm running the PC now and everything works fine, it's been running fine for the last month after the accident apart from the odd time it fails to boot.

PS: youm0nt - 'maybe you need to plug it in?' I hope that was sarcasm :happy:

[MrWatchDawg]

Maybe your Video card is blown?

[Retinal]

  MrWatchDawg said:

Maybe your Video card is blown?

:blink: Err... Like I said i'm using the PC now and have been for the last month. If the Video Card had blown I don't think I would be able to use the pc at all. I maybe wrong with you terminology of 'blown'.

[MrWatchDawg]

O NVM then..hrrm then its your mobo..its messed up!

[lawtai]

the connection on the cables could be bad so you periodically lose power to your computer. Like they could be connected more securely.

[Dragon75]

I would check all your connectors. Maybe just tear down everyhting and build it back up again. It could help.

:)

[Retinal]

I don't think the connections are lose. The PC's been in the back of a van and hurtled down the motorway at 70mph, bumping around in the back as it went when I came home from Uni.

The PC doesn't lose power on it's own, it doesn't just switch off if it's knocked or banged. It's just sometime when I go to switch it on in the morning it doesn't coe on first time, it just powers up and hangs before the BIOS beeps. I have to hard reset it and then try again, after that it's fine all day.

[amoeba]

I would pull everything apart if you haven't already. Give it a thorough cleaning. Make sure all the pins and whatnot for every connector are clean and not broken. I would recommend compressed (canned) air for the cleaning process.

I don't know much about this next recommendation I'm going to make, but maybe your motherboard's battery or batteries are shot and need replacing. Head to Radio Shack and get some new ones.

[amoeba]

  Retinal said:

I don't think the connections are lose. The PC's been in the back of a van and hurtled down the motorway at 70mph, bumping around in the back as it went when I came home from Uni.

The PC doesn't lose power on it's own, it doesn't just switch off if it's knocked or banged. It's just sometime when I go to switch it on in the morning it doesn't coe on first time, it just powers up and hangs before the BIOS beeps. I have to hard reset it and then try again, after that it's fine all day.

Either way, you can still have bad connections.

And regarding how you treat your computer... There's no wonder it's the way it is. Computers really aren't that tough and can be very weak if you are the the unlucky person that gets one of the defective but still working parts from the manufacturer. They're very good at breaking.

[Retinal]

The 'pulling everything apart and putting it back together in the hope that it may fix the problem' is kind simple but it might just work :p

As for the mobo battery, well if that went I guess I would lose the time/date of my system. Seeing as that's not the case I assume its not that.

Has anyone got any ideas on the second half of my problem, the slow XP boot. (I know this is the hardware section but I really don't think it's XP's fault because I tried a fresh install and it had the same problem.)

[youm0nt Veteran]

  Retinal said:

PS: youm0nt - 'maybe you need to plug it in?' I hope that was sarcasm :happy:

i was serious though ;) you dont need that connector plugged in though :)

[DigitalFreedom]

  Retinal said:

:blink: Err... Like I said i'm using the PC now and have been for the last month. If the Video Card had blown I don't think I would be able to use the pc at all. I maybe wrong with you terminology of 'blown'.

ummm, my video card is blowen and i'm still using right now in fact, and yes, it does casuse windows not to boot sometimes here 2, but anyways, yeah, its werid too over here, i can use most programs without it blowing up in my face, but games are a no no with my broken vid card, it just over heats in 3 secs and REBOOT! so yeah i'm screwed and too lazy to get it rma'ed because i don't want to lose my computer, i might get it rma'ed after i gwt my new pc, i still have 2 yrs warrenty left on this vid card anyways :p

[digipoi]

Try reseating the processor, and then reseating your cards, etc. If that doesnt work you probably threw out something on your mobo. Look at the capacitors and see if they are swollen, its a common problem and easy fix to replace them.

[Retinal]

  DigitalFreedom said:

ummm, my video card is blowen and i'm still using right now in fact, and yes, it does casuse windows not to boot sometimes here 2, but anyways, yeah, its werid too over here, i can use most programs without it blowing up in my face, but games are a no no with my broken vid card, it just over heats in 3 secs and REBOOT! so yeah i'm screwed and too lazy to get it rma'ed because i don't want to lose my computer, i might get it rma'ed after i gwt my new pc, i still have 2 yrs warrenty left on this vid card anyways :p

I can play games fine on it and i've had no reboots/shutdowns while in windows so I really doubt it's anything to do with my gfx card or anything overheating. :)

  Quote

Try reseating the processor, and then reseating your cards, etc. If that doesnt work you probably threw out something on your mobo. Look at the capacitors and see if they are swollen, its a common problem and easy fix to replace them.

I'll take a peek and see if I can see any 'swollen' capacitors. But like I said, it very strange, some days the PC boots up fine, other days it take two tries. Don't get me wrong, my PC works it's just I don't like haveing something wrong with my PC and not knowing what it is.