Old pc unstable unless boot after unplugging

oldpcguy969 · 16 Jan 2019 at 08:59

Dear all:
I have an old PC (intel DX58SO motherboard, xeon 5650 etc) and normal boot (cold or hot) ensures blue screen crash. However the PC is rock solid if I switching off using the button on PSU or unplugging from the wall before booting.
I wonder if any of you have any idea what could have gone wrong. I swapped most component except motherboard and the symptom remains. I wonder it is something to do with the old DX58SO motherboard (I reset bios a couple of times as well)
Thank you for your time!

oldpcguy969 · 19 Jan 2019 at 12:24

Thank you for reply. The specs is:
Motherboard Intel DX50SO,
CPU: Xeon 5650
Memory: Corsair 1333MHz vengeance
Video card: GTX 460
PSU: EVGA 650W
Crucial SSD.
all are old components so I have swapped everything except the motherboard (and did memtest nothing wrong with the ram) and the symptom is the same.
The symptom starts about a couple of years ago and there is nothing particular happened before this.
Crash happens at random time after switch on (most of times it boots into system is fine).

But if there is a complete power cut (unplug or something) then the system is very stable (never crashed).

So I wonder after normal switch off (software controlled ) there is something wrong in the circuit controlling the power off or resetting the hardware on the motherboard.

JCLDJB said:
[EDIT]

How long have you had this?

Did you buy it new?

What kind of bluescreen - and at what point in the 'loading' process?

Did you get any power failures in your area, before these bluescreens started?

These parts have all sorts of features & configs, of which I am not at all familiar with (which is probs why you haven't got a decent response yet..)

oldpcguy969 · 20 Jan 2019 at 08:42

Meddling-Monk said:
Can you look at the capictors on your motherboard? Do any of them looking bloated at the top? Or leaking? It sounds like it might be one of the possible causes of your issues.

Just checked the motherboard all capacitors look okay tho :confused:

. Thanks for the suggestion anyway! :cool:

oldpcguy969 · 21 Jan 2019 at 16:59

JCLDJB said:
There could be something wrong, from a software level, but have you checked they physical button you pressed, following the circuitry from the PCB supporting that button, down the wire to where it's connected to the board?

What about the component around that wire going into the board?

Also whne you say it crashes after a soft boot, happening at random, at what process (in loading up Windows) does it crash?

Or is it the case of 'soft-booting' then loading windows, doing whatever you do on the PC and getting a random crash couple of hours later?

Also, it's looking more and more likely like the board; however if I were you I would check the actual Power/Reset switch (part of the case I assume?) and see if there is any chance to connect a different Power/Reset Switch, to see if maybe that resolve the issue.

If not, most likely the board, unless you can determine exactly when (what part of the Windows loading process) it fails, and/or try to log at the Windows Error Logs.

Hope you find the error logged in the Windows Error Logs in Event Viewer.

Thank for the reply. It crashes after 10 to 20 minutes of use and most of the times Windows/OS loads okay
However sometimes a hot restart (restart from OS command) is stable. But sleep/waking up is guaranteed to crash.
I have both Windows 7 and Linux so it is not OS ( I also tried disconnecting hard drives and boot from Linux USB -- this does not make any difference).
I remember seeing Windows blue screen saying hardware failure. But there is little in the error log (it probably crashed too quickly to log anything).
Maybe I should write off the motherboard.... A bit annoying because stability from cold (hard) boot suggesting 99% of the board is probably working well.

oldpcguy969 · 28 Jan 2019 at 07:57

eeii said:
This sounds to me to be ESD which is electronic static discharge damage. In other words when components start warming up the metal tracers move and causes a crash. Seen this on servers in the past. The motherboard needs replacing.

Thank you. I searched around and got some information vaguely along those lines. Someone says sometime an earthing issue can cause problems like this -- and properly earthing the case/motherboard can help (I tried but didn't work).
So in my case probably motherboard is toasted anyway. Can you please elaborate? I am just curious