Got a weird one here....

Rubberhead

Rubberhead

Rubberhead

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7 Jul 2006
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Got a weird one here....'think I found it'*EDITED*

Ok, so this morning I turned my comp on, and it turned itself off..
I did some fiddling, removing cards etc, but it would still turn
itself off. I then noticed that it wasnt actually off, the green power
light was still on, and to use the front power switch to try turning
it on again, I had to hold it in for 4secs.
So.. basically, the board is getting power, but not going to post,
and needs the 4sec power button hold to turn it off.
I tried resetting the bios also, but to no avail.
My thoughts of dodgy PSU turned to a bad mobo... perhaps...
Well... after about an hour of unsucessful turning on/off again,
I started to lightly tap (well.. fairly lightly) on the top left of the case,
above the cd roms... and it posted! Got to the windows loading screen...
then froze.
So, I turned it off/on again, and it did the turning off-but not off thing again.
This time I tried tapping at the front left side, and nothing happened.
Tapped the top again, and it posted... booted into windows.....
and lost my sound drivers. I reinstalled, rebooted, and here I am!
So.. I can deduce that my equipment is fundamentally sound, just there is
something... 'wonky' in there needs fixing.
Im unemployed atm, I only have one comp, so I have to think about this carefully, I can probably afford to replace 1 part. Its a fairly new-ish (no older than 20months, Celeron machine, but obviously the tech is moving on.
Anyone have any ideas for things I can try? I mean... could it be a loose wire? Dodgy mobo?
Its all working 'fine' now, I'm using it, here I am :)
But I'm worried what will happen next time I have to turn it on
Any ideas, tips, things to look for, suggestions, money or women will be
greatly appreciated
 
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Is this a metal case; if so any chance of borrowing a multi meter and checking to see if there is anything runnign through the case and causing the short as said above.
 
Its a pre-built system, with some bits added, has been working fine day in day out till this morning, indeed.. it hasnt been touched for some months
Its a Fujistsu Siemens
2.6ghz Celeron
1GB Ram (512mb added)
Asus P4GE-FSC mobo
350w PSU (upgraded from 300w)
Ati Radeon 9250 (added)
Soundblaster Audigy (added)
2 hard drives, 1 dvd writer

I have checked for wires shorting on the case, cant see any
I am going to be most interested to see if this happens again tomorrow,
Im too frightened to turn it off right now its working
 
I had a spider commit suicide in a UPS, little sod blew my UPS up and it never worked again !.

I didn't know spiders were conductive enough to short out mains to low voltage circuitry!.

They are moving indoors at this time of year and finding dark dry spaces to ride out winter, so you never know :eek:.
 
Ok, I took everything apart from the hard drives, and guess what?
It is my secondary hard drive that is causing it. 100% certain and repeatable.
As soon as it is plugged in (tried with a couple of differernt connectors) it prevents the machine from even booting, unplug it and its fine.

Any thoughts as to why this is happenening? Ive looked for shorts anywhere near it, tried several different power connectors. Yesterday, when I got it to work by tapping it, the hard drive worked, it apparently works fine, warcraft is installed on it, and I was playing that yesterday, its giving no errors.
Ive had plenty of hard drives die on me, this one is actually a fairly new 160gb, and I've never had one that caused the machine to shut off.

Well anyway, popping a hard drive in a friends machine is a darn sight easier than sticking my mobo in, so now I have a positive lead to try, but any thoughts or suggestions (and beer) is greatly appreciated
 
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