computer help

Basticle

so my parents computer has beein giving me trouble for over a year now. it would just reboot itself seemingly at random all the time. I couldnt figure out what the hell the problem was so I just built them a new computer since the first one was old anyway. everything was new except the RAM. the hard drive and dvd burner were old but had not been in their computer. so i build the new one and the same fucking thing happens. I replace the RAM since it was the only common link AND IT STILL KEEPS DOING IT.


mainly because I'm lazy I didnt do much about it for months. but now theres an even worse problem. the computer wont turn on. when you power it up the lights and fans and everything start up but nothing happens. I tried unconnecting the hard drive and dvd burner and even changed the RAM and its still doing it. is it probably the motherboard?

I think their computer desk is haunted.

SoulStalker

Did you keep the same case? It could be an issue with your power supply. It could also be an issue with the motherboard, if you didn't change that.

Basticle

when I rebuilt it I used a new case and power supply if thats what you meant. like I said the only thing that was the same in both computers was the RAM but I replaced that and the original problem persisted.

SoulStalker

There are many things that could be wrong. It could be as simple as a piece of software causing the instability (most likely drivers for the motherboard/video card). Or, it could be 'dirty' power coming from the outlet where you plug the computer in, which could be killing your hardware.

When you rebuilt the computer, did the random reboots start happening right away, or only after the computer had been set up for a week or two? What OS are you installing? What hardware and drivers are you installing?

Basticle

new developments:

so randomly unplugging things resulted in it booting up again. unfortunately when I went into the BIOS it just up and shut itself off.

I think I'm leaning more towards a power supply / power supply cables problem because when I had the hard drive hooked up to a power supply connection nothing worked but switching it to another connection (on another string) it booted up.

SoulStalker

How many watts is the power supply rated for? How many devices (hard drives, optical drives, fancy high-powered video cards) are in the system?

Basticle

300 watt

lets see there is:

Intel Celeron D 336
1GB memory
motherboard

1 DVD burner

1 PATA hard drive

and....thats it

SoulStalker

300W should be more than enough to handle that setup, unless you've got a brand new, power-hungry video card in that rig too. How many cards do you have installed in PCI slots (like network cards, sound cards, etc), and how many slots are there for these types of cards? Your problem could be caused by a hardware conflict as well.

Your discovery that switching power cables helped the system boot seems odd to me, though. Do you have everything connected to the same 'string' of power wires? I'm not too sure about the electrical engineering aspects of power supplies, but I know some of them offer two different 5V rails - it might help if you didn't have all of the devices plugged into the same 'string' of wires.

Basticle

I have no cards, everything is integrated

Basticle

yeeah so uh the last time I tried to power it down the lights went off but the fans were still on and the power button on the front of the case did nothing. I had to use the switch on the back of the power supply....

embrik

My first thought was line noise or some other power issue. Do you have access to/are you willing to purchase a UPS? Getting it clean power will rule that out, and it's not a bad idea to have one anyway. There could be some sort of issue with the electrical wiring on that power outlet/circuit.

The question you should be asking is: From the old PC to the new PC, what has stayed the same?
Is it the same electrical outlet? Same monitor?
Basically, try to remove the variables that stayed by testing the PC with those variables removed (e.g. move the PC to another circuit/building, try a different monitor, etc.)

Basticle

at this point the only thing thats the same is the outlet

Basticle

so I replaced the power supply and am using an UPS and it still wont turn on properly