PCs crashing simultaneously.

spleenharvester · 28 Jul 2011 at 21:40

Hi all, I have an absolutely absurd problem to present.

We have two PCs running under this roof. One is the machine in my sig, the other is a build with the following spec:

Athlon X2 5000+ 2.6GHz
GeForce 8800GT 512MB
OCZ StealthXStream I 400W
Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2
Samsung F1 160GB
Samsung SP0802N 80GB

Now, the above build has a long history of crashing, since end of last year. It has recently begun crashing even more, we have tried literally everything with spare parts save the motherboard and WiFi card.

My own build has been crashing over the last few days too. Hard locks, sound freezes up. Still partially working (finished syncing with my Sansa Clip in this state), and requires a hard reset.

Simultaneously, I will hear the downstairs computer booting up again also. It doesn't seem to BSoD or hang, it just resets.

Nothing else in the house seems to have an issue.

Now where in the hell do I start troubleshooting with this? Tried spare PSUs, no difference. Only thing I can think of is the M61PME-S2 has always had grounding issues, while plugging in any USB device a blue spark will appear. Is it possible this grounding is tripping the mains somehow?

Cheers

RiseAgainst · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:06

could be your house wiring, it may be causing surges and you psu is trying to protect the computer. Not to sure though :/

Socrates470BC · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:12

Try taking one of the PCs, preferably your own build to a friend or relative's house and run it there for a few days.

This will help rule out external factors.

Surveyor · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:13

Take it/them round to friend or relative and try their electricity supply.

Edit

Great minds think alike

spleenharvester · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:26

I have 2 spare rigs out here, might try them both instead and see if it stops.

It's odd, I don't think it's the house wiring, nothing else goes down. Just the two computers.

I still suspect motherboard, honestly the grounding problems on this thing have always been atrocious. I started it with the speaker cable out and it was touching the outside of the case, it started up with a low power squeal and refused to POST for a good half an hour after. It's my brother's rig though and he doesn't seem keen on replacing it.

Might swap the board out with a 775/E2140 setup and see where it goes.