PC SUDDENLY POWERS OFF BEFORE LOADING WINDOWS

maratheftis

maratheftis

maratheftis

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Joined
18 Oct 2006
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21
Hi guys.
I had my pc for about a year-working fine till now. (its an Asus motherboaRD,AMD 64 3200+,2x512 ram ddr). I was watchign a film on it last NIGHT,was working fine. This morning switched it on as normal to check e-mail etc.
It booted up fine, but then before it went to the windows logging screen it powered off. Clicking on the power button didn't work. to switch it back on again, i had to remove it from the mains and connect it again. Switched it back on and again it powered off at the same point.
I haven't had the time yet to do any troubleshooting as i had to go to work, but i tried to log-in via safe mode, i log in normally and as soon as it tries to load window's it powers of again (no blue screen no nothing,just switches off and cant' switch it on until i remove it from the mains and reconnect it). i checked the CPU fan seems to be working fine.
I've heard some stuff on dodgy MOBO capacitors, but haven't checked... any ideas anyone had something similar happen?
 
good idea. i suppose that's the next thing, i am just wondering if i can try and re-install windows, the process goaes ok then i would imagine that wouldnt be a hardware issue in terms of psu etc. is there a way you can tell whether the cpu fan/heatsink are not doing a good job- i can monitor it since i can't really get into windows..at all...
 
Touch the heatsink, how hot is it? If its very cool it may not be conducting properly, if it's warm then it should be ok. If it's boiling and too hot to touch then you're likely overheating. That's a very rough guide by the way...
 
As noted this sounds like classic PSU degradation. However your PSU might be fine. First, reseat all components, something may of come loose in a year. Including fans filled with cat hair.

Press f8, can you reach safe mode? It might be a software issue.

If you have any overclocks, dial back to stock. If you are at stock, underclock if you can. If it then boots, it tells us the PSU is on the edge of the power envelope for stable operation (or the chip is damaged from overclocking).
 
artaxerxes said:
As noted this sounds like classic PSU degradation. However your PSU might be fine. First, reseat all components, something may of come loose in a year. Including fans filled with cat hair.

Press f8, can you reach safe mode? It might be a software issue.

If you have any overclocks, dial back to stock. If you are at stock, underclock if you can. If it then boots, it tells us the PSU is on the edge of the power envelope for stable operation (or the chip is damaged from overclocking).
Click to expand...

no..the pc is not overclocked at all.
This is what happens:
1.Press the power button
2.Boots up ok,motherboard beeps,show hardware devices
3.Show's the windows XP loading square thinkingy
4.Before it loads the windows login screen it powers off
5.Clicking on the power button does not power on the pc
6.Remove from mains and recconect.
7.Pc powers on, i boot up from safe mode with network support, i log in to windows and then it powers off again.....

i haven't had the time to look into it in detail..i will have a look tonite after work and get back to you guys..i am actually lookign to build a new pc, but was thinking of doing it in stages,,over some moths..and really looking for a painless-solution to this,,we'll see. I've looked up some stuff on net and another common problem where the motherboard capacitors leaking..anyone had that problem? http://www.thenakedpc.com/dan/Bulging_Capacitors/close-up.jpg
Thanks i will keep you to date..:mad:
 
Try with the minimum of components, i.e. just the GFX, mem and chip and HSF/fan on the board. Then if it boots, just add components till it fails. Good luck!
 
if its booting it may be a case of your heat sink not touching all over the cpu overheating then turning off!, just take everything off and put back on, start with the minimal amount as stated above!
 
I have a very similar problem to yours. I just tried installing xp on top of vista and then I installed the dual boot program that is a free download. Then I restarted the computer and also increased the NB 1.8 voltage up on notch as well as the cpu voltage to 1.375. When I restarted the system it just crashes to a blue screen or if I put in the recovery disk it loads the files on and then crashes as soon as it is about to load the vista program. It seems as though it is whenever it tries to use the hard-drive as I unplugged the harddrive and switched it on and it does the exact same thing. The harddrive is accesible in another computer though. SO my guess is at the moment it is somthing on the motherboard which stops it communicating with the hard-drive. Anyone else got any idea?
 
ok so this is what i have done up to now:

1. Loaded last good configuration-loads up powers off
2. Changed bios-restarts, powers of before loading windows
3. Loaded up windows resotre mode(windows domain config),loads up and powers off again
4. Loaded safe mode with networking-i manage to log in to windows,before loading the start-up menus etc, powers off.
5. Loaded safe mode only with ms-dos prombt loads up and working fine...which IS REALLY WIERD AND ANNOYING....i removed the latest windows update which was done on the 29th...restarted still powers of in normal windows mode,,,
I want to tryh and repair windows,but now the pc does not swithc on at all, although the green led on the motherboard is on etc...so no idea what the hell is goign on, could this be anything with my mains? the prob i have other things on it,,on the plug and they are working fine,,which is strange


i checked the cpu fan temp in bios and it's 37'c which is normal ...(to me anyway),,not sure what's going on here..
 
Sounds to me like the PSU is on its way out. Either that or the motherboard, but the PSU would be my first guess. Try another one. The fact that things seem to be getting worse point to a slowly dying PSU. Happened to me a while back.
 
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ok i tnk i may have found the problem, it was weird how i could log in to safe mode without network support, so i removed the ethernet wire,, and it worked,,however i first resotred windows to a previous date so that could have helped either...

to try that again,,,i put the wired back on, restarted (it didnt even restart it powered off) restarted again, powered on with the wire in, when loading windows it powered off again,.,

so i restareted windows again without the ethernet wire, and it starts up normally logs into windwo's fine etc etc,,,however i do get a mcafee issue,,so am wondering whether it could some sort of virus of some sort,,but it shouldnt really affect the pc powering on and off should it?

so i think that could have sold the problem, issue is, why all of a sudden?.,,,,and when i put the wire back in when i am logged into window's i can put the wire back in and surf the net as normal..really strange, i couldnt rollback the drivers, because there werent any,,,not sure what to do here. could it be that the network drive died? if it did, why can i use it after i log into windows?
 
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