OK so here's the deal. I upgraded my PC's mobo, CPU, videocard and RAM (so, everything but the HDD, case, PSU and DVD Drive, then). Everything works fine... Except some times the PC won't boot up. Sometimes I turn it on, I see the mobo splash screen, then everything turns off again, and then it resets. Other times I get to the Windows loading screen, at which point the screen goes off and so does the PC. This usually happens when I start up with a CD in the disc drive, but the weird thing is, it happens when I take the disc out and reboot as well. But then when I go awhile just booting regularly, without any discs in the drive, it works just fine.
I'm thinking it's a PSU issue, as my PSU is nearly 2 years old and 450watt. It's an Antec PSU, that came in the case (Sonata II). My new system is Abit IP35-E mobo, ASUS Geforce 8800GT, 2GB DDR2 RAM, and Intel Q6600 quad core.
I'll probably replace the PSU anyway as it is 2 years old, and I want to be on the safe side, but I'd like to know if anyone has any ideas as to what's causing this.
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It's kind of a shitty problem since it's intermittent, but it sounds like you're just gonna have to start replacing the parts one at a time.
(i also agree that PSU is a very likely source, since it does sound pretty old, so I'd replace that, too, since if you get one that's pretty sweet you can just drag it to a future box anyway :P)
So let's celebrate by all going out and buying the same burger. -transmet
Overheating sounds unlikely, since you said it only shuts itself down on boot. Case shorting is when some component's wires touch the case. It almost never happens, but if you have a crappy case speaker or similar component, its wires might not have enough shielding. In that case, it can damage your PSU, so you'll probably want to try out another one anyway.
edit: Also, I haven't had a single crash yet, just the booting thing. Also, this may be entirely unrelated, but shutting down takes an age and a half too. When I click 'Shut down' in Start, it takes a while for the shut down/reboot/sleep mode thing to come on, and then when I actually shut down, it stays on the 'Windows is shutting down' screen for a good few minutes before actually shutting down.
No point here really except to say that tracking down shit like this made me start buying computers from vendors.
Yeah I guess I could do that, but god damnit. Having to install a fuckton of drivers and shit again, as well as formatting my partition, installing windows, and all that shit, is not a great prospect. It boils down to how much this bothers me. Since the rest of my PC works fine, I don't think it bothers me enough to make me do that. But I might, at some point. It is annoying.