Help! Weird Hardware/Software Problem.

[The Stigenator]

Earlier this evening I had to drive down to Thousand Oaks to meet a old co-worker of mine. She has asked me to come by and look at a machine which according to her was giving "red and blue" colors.
My first inclination was a virus so I took a virus scanner with me.

Anyway I got there, and then found that it was the monitor that gave a test screen, it wasnt receiving signals.
So I decided to look inside.. opened her up and pulled out the additional cards and just left teh motherboard, cpu, memory and videocard.
It wouldnt boot.
So I pulled out the video card.. thinking the motherboard must be bad.. but I will go thru the routine.

I plug her in.. no beeps..
Ok.. pull the memory out.
Plug her in.. no beeps.
Pull the processor out..
plug her in .. no beeps.If your counting.. its only the motherboard.

I look at the problem list.. and it says.. freezes like 10 times a day.. so I say to myself it must work somehow.

So I put back everything.. plug her in and voila.. it boots.

So I run an over the web scan for virus (housecall) and sure enough there are no viruses.

Just about when I was going to leave.. it froze on me and I rebooted..

Here are the specs:
Some vague Motherboard
Celery 500
96 Mb ram
Riva 128ZX
USR Modem
Aureal Vortex.
SMC Network Card.
Toshiba DVD & Maxtor HDD

What should I do.. I will have her test it out a few more days, and see if it runs, but then I think it might need a new motherboard. The CPU is a Celery with the Heat Sink attached, so I cant even put some thermal compund on it. It warms up pretty fast though, the fan turns on too so its not a CPU fan not working sign.

By the way this machine is a "Quantex" machine.. I plan to have her call them up to see if its under warrenty.. before i do anything.

Any Ideas what might be going on?

 

[Kitros]

errr....duh...hmmmm...
I'd try a new mobo, but if that doesn't work, reinstall(it can't hurt, can it?) Have you tries to run it in safe mode for a while? That might be a good place to start....it doesn't necissarily have to be a hardware problem, does it?

Edit- I'm stumped, sorry....

 

[The Stigenator]

point is teh first time it didnt even POST.

And I had pressed on everything and plugged her in to see no POST.

That is when I pulled out the card out.. and go thru the routine.

 

[medic]

Next time you go over I would take a can of air, a PCI video card, a nice stick of ram and an extra P.S.

Process of elimination...take an extra Celery if you have one kicking around also!

 

[The Stigenator]

I had planned to take that earlier. I dont think I have a spare Celery here at home.. maybe at work.. if I can fish one out of somewhere.

The PowerSupply is a No Name Brand one, it has no power rating on it too, and the memory seem like OEM .. one of the chips I recognised the other I didnt. What's funny is that this machine was running fine until a week or two back...

I will give this a shot tommorow evening.. and see what comes up.

CRV thanks for that help on Lost and Found.. Came in Mighty Handy..
I owe you one.

Thanks,
Manjul Bose
The_good_guy