Random power downs - system won't boot at all after

[UnatcoAgent]

I usually leave my system on all the time, but I shut it down completely over night last night. I turned the switch off at the back to totally power it down, then in the morning when I turned the switch back to on and pressed the power button, it would power up for less than a second and then shut off completely (scary). I unplugged everything, including the power to a new WD ata 160 drive I had just put in, then powered on with just the power cable in. Boots up. Plug everything back in, no problem.

At the time my computer was sitting outside of this cubby hole in my desk that I normally store it in. Once I had put it back together and had it running, I grabbed the cables at the back in one hand, and then started to slide it back into the cubby hole. As I reached the back of the desk the entire thing shut off again, and wouldn't turn back on.

Same process, took it out and unplugged everything, booted again so I re-plugged everything in and now have it ontop of my desk where it's been running fine. It froze on POST for the first time the other day, but I don't know if that is of any relevance.

Any ideas ?


System:
Amd XP 2500+
Asus A7N8X deluxé
Antec ColdBlue 350 Watt PS
Radeon 9100
1gig 2700 DDR (2x256, 1x512)
WD 160 Ata
Maxtor 80 Sata

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Any ideas guys?

 

[Jojo7]

What do the temps look like?
Any beeps? Try memtest?

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Temps look good, running at 50C most of the time. Havn't tried memtest yet.

Any other ideas as to why it might power down and not come back to life ?

 

[phreaqe]

Originally posted by: Sabot
I usually leave my system on all the time, but I shut it down completely over night last night. I turned the switch off at the back to totally power it down, then in the morning when I turned the switch back to on and pressed the power button, it would power up for less than a second and then shut off completely (scary). I unplugged everything, including the power to a new WD ata 160 drive I had just put in, then powered on with just the power cable in. Boots up. Plug everything back in, no problem.

At the time my computer was sitting outside of this cubby hole in my desk that I normally store it in. Once I had put it back together and had it running, I grabbed the cables at the back in one hand, and then started to slide it back into the cubby hole. As I reached the back of the desk the entire thing shut off again, and wouldn't turn back on.

Same process, took it out and unplugged everything, booted again so I re-plugged everything in and now have it ontop of my desk where it's been running fine. It froze on POST for the first time the other day, but I don't know if that is of any relevance.

Any ideas ?


System:
Amd XP 2500+
Asus A7N8X deluxé
Antec ColdBlue 350 Watt PS
Radeon 9100
1gig 2700 DDR (2x256, 1x512)
WD 160 Ata
Maxtor 80 Sata

i have a very similar system. some motherboard, same processor, same amount of ram.
i was having the same problem. in the sus probe progam it was saying my temps were about 40 but when i went into the bios it was saying around 80. double check the cpu heatsink i think that may be your problem.

 

[UnatcoAgent]

How should I check the heatsink? What should I look for in terms of positioning?

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: Sabot
How should I check the heatsink? What should I look for in terms of positioning?

It would probably be best to take the heatsink off and observe the footprint on the base of the heatsink left by the thermal paste. If there isnt a rectangle/square 'ish' print of thermal paste then the heatsink may have been incorrectly installed.

Also, make sure you have the heatsink on the right way. I accidently put my SLK-900A on the wrong way and had random resets. Temperatures looked good, below 50C from BIOS and various temperature programs and I had no idea what was wrong, checked things, turned out that i had the heatsink on the wrong way. Check the cut-out part on the heatsink base, match up that cutout piece with the high ridge on the CPU Socket. Basic steps but they can easily be done incorrectly and present a problem which doesnt seem to have an apparent answer.

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Originally posted by: Elcs

Originally posted by: Sabot
How should I check the heatsink? What should I look for in terms of positioning?

It would probably be best to take the heatsink off and observe the footprint on the base of the heatsink left by the thermal paste. If there isnt a rectangle/square 'ish' print of thermal paste then the heatsink may have been incorrectly installed.

Also, make sure you have the heatsink on the right way. I accidently put my SLK-900A on the wrong way and had random resets. Temperatures looked good, below 50C from BIOS and various temperature programs and I had no idea what was wrong, checked things, turned out that i had the heatsink on the wrong way. Check the cut-out part on the heatsink base, match up that cutout piece with the high ridge on the CPU Socket. Basic steps but they can easily be done incorrectly and present a problem which doesnt seem to have an apparent answer.

Alright I will take a look, thanks. The system was built about a year ago, there havn't been any problems up until just now, would the heatsink be able to 'slip' at all over time?

 

[540mb]

Could be a dying PSU. Also you might want to check your L1 and L2 caches on the chip. Disable them in the bios and see if it boots. I've had the L1 cache die on a XP.

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Originally posted by: 540mb
Could be a dying PSU. Also you might want to check your L1 and L2 caches on the chip. Disable them in the bios and see if it boots. I've had the L1 cache die on a XP.

What is the purpose / difference with L1 and L2 caches on the chip, exactly ? If I disable them in the bios, should the system still boot ?