Hello,
My PC has been working fine for years, but started to develop a problem recovering from S3 standby. Normally I would hit SHIFT, the PC would wake up, and I would be off to the races. Recently, SHIFT would have no effect. Then I found I needed to turn it on and off a bunch of times before it would finally grudgingly boot. Now it no longer boots at all. So I bought a new PSU, an Enermax 620W. Hooked it all up including the 12v cable, the 24-pin mobo connector, the SATA connector for my main drive, the Fan1 cable, and the molexes for the rest (2 other hard drives, 2 optical drives, and a 3.5 floppy drive).
The PC now POSTs and then starts the boot sequence. However now it stops when it wants, rarely before completing the boot. It just suddenly powers down. I took it to a local computer shop, and they said a plastic pin on the stock heatsinc/fan was broken, so they replaced the hs/fan. They said it was a thermal shutdown since the hs/fan wasn't firmly against the CPU. That seemed like a reasonable explanation, and it actually seemed to work. The computer booted right up and was fine in the store. Then I brought it home, and it again booted successfully and stayed up for about 2 hours. Then it died again. Since then, it is back to where it was before, unable to stay alive long enough to even complete the boot process. I even left it unplugged all night, and tried it in the morning. Again, power just dies after about a minute.
During one of the times it was up, I went into the BIOS and watched the PC Monitor. The temp of the CPU was only listed at 42 degrees when it died. I was staring right at it, which makes me think it can't be the vidcard since it was barely doing anything and certainly could not be overheating. It also can't be related to what is booting (ie. the OS) since it happens if I just sit staring at the BIOS.
I have pulled the molex connectors from everything, now only the SATA is connected.
I have pulled all PCI cards, I now only have my PCI-E vidcard installed and connected via the 6-pin power connector.
Case is wide open, sides are off. It is not dusty.
Any ideas what this could be? There are only a few possibilities left, and I am worried that if I take it back to the store, they may simply give up and replace the mobo + CPU and declare that the solution. Since I just bought the new PSU there, if that is the cause they won't have any problem replacing it. But if it is not, replacing the mobo will likely fix it, but won't be a very cost-effective solution.
Asus P5N-E SLI mobo
Intel 6420 2.133 Core 2 Duo
4 GB OCZ PC6400 RAM
Enermax Liberty 620W PSU
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB vidcard
500 GB SATA HD
PS/2 KB
USB Mouse
Dual boot Vista and XP
Nothing else is connected. Any ideas?
Thanks,
BM.
My PC has been working fine for years, but started to develop a problem recovering from S3 standby. Normally I would hit SHIFT, the PC would wake up, and I would be off to the races. Recently, SHIFT would have no effect. Then I found I needed to turn it on and off a bunch of times before it would finally grudgingly boot. Now it no longer boots at all. So I bought a new PSU, an Enermax 620W. Hooked it all up including the 12v cable, the 24-pin mobo connector, the SATA connector for my main drive, the Fan1 cable, and the molexes for the rest (2 other hard drives, 2 optical drives, and a 3.5 floppy drive).
The PC now POSTs and then starts the boot sequence. However now it stops when it wants, rarely before completing the boot. It just suddenly powers down. I took it to a local computer shop, and they said a plastic pin on the stock heatsinc/fan was broken, so they replaced the hs/fan. They said it was a thermal shutdown since the hs/fan wasn't firmly against the CPU. That seemed like a reasonable explanation, and it actually seemed to work. The computer booted right up and was fine in the store. Then I brought it home, and it again booted successfully and stayed up for about 2 hours. Then it died again. Since then, it is back to where it was before, unable to stay alive long enough to even complete the boot process. I even left it unplugged all night, and tried it in the morning. Again, power just dies after about a minute.
During one of the times it was up, I went into the BIOS and watched the PC Monitor. The temp of the CPU was only listed at 42 degrees when it died. I was staring right at it, which makes me think it can't be the vidcard since it was barely doing anything and certainly could not be overheating. It also can't be related to what is booting (ie. the OS) since it happens if I just sit staring at the BIOS.
I have pulled the molex connectors from everything, now only the SATA is connected.
I have pulled all PCI cards, I now only have my PCI-E vidcard installed and connected via the 6-pin power connector.
Case is wide open, sides are off. It is not dusty.
Any ideas what this could be? There are only a few possibilities left, and I am worried that if I take it back to the store, they may simply give up and replace the mobo + CPU and declare that the solution. Since I just bought the new PSU there, if that is the cause they won't have any problem replacing it. But if it is not, replacing the mobo will likely fix it, but won't be a very cost-effective solution.
Asus P5N-E SLI mobo
Intel 6420 2.133 Core 2 Duo
4 GB OCZ PC6400 RAM
Enermax Liberty 620W PSU
GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB vidcard
500 GB SATA HD
PS/2 KB
USB Mouse
Dual boot Vista and XP
Nothing else is connected. Any ideas?
Thanks,
BM.
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