Strange power problem?

[KokomoGST]

I built a nice AMD64 system for my dad a month or so ago and I haven't been able to really resolve this problem.

After I built it, I put it downstairs and it booted the first try without a problem. After shut down it refused to boot again... weird... tried and checked everything... no dice.

Take the case and everything and took it upstairs to my living room... plug it in... hit the power button and on it goes. WTF? Runs great... take it to my brother's room for more troubleshooting and everything seems great... different monitor but tower and components. Take it downstairs to my dad's home office and again, when I plug it in... just plug it in and flick the powersupply on, it powers on. I didn't even hit the power button. It turns on and for a second fans power off, then back on and proceeds with a regular bootup. Computer runs all stability checks and runs Prime95, etcetc just fine without crapping out with any errors.

Shut it down and again, it will not turn back on through the power switch. Yet it always did upstairs... I changed the surge protector, even tried pulling other items out of the surge protector to isolate it. Take it back upstairs one more time to my room and it works fine...

I'm stumped...

 

[Deskstar]

You might want to buy a circuit tester (available at any hardware of home supply store). You plug it into the outlet directly, and it tells you if you have a fault, bad polarity, crossed wires etc. This shold cost very little and might be the source of your electical problems. If the circuit is a bad one downstairs, then your electician is your next call.

 

[nullshark]

And if it's an older house, the ground might not be connected to that third socket in the wall outlet.

 

[Markfw]

What kind of PSU ? If it is a little weak, then bad house wiring can cause low voltage, and it wouldn;t work in those outlets. I have seen this before. I put a better PSU in, and fixed the problem.

 

[Dman877]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
What kind of PSU ? If it is a little weak, then bad house wiring can cause low voltage, and it wouldn;t work in those outlets. I have seen this before. I put a better PSU in, and fixed the problem.

That's what I was thinking, low voltage on the downstairs outlet (maybe 95 - 105 AC) might "gimp" a cheap psu.

 

[tkistre]

I've actually seen a very similar situation before with the power cord going to the power supply. I used a KVM switch and spare power cord for working on PC's in my office. Just recently, I ran into problems with a couple of PC's I was working on (just cleaning ad/spy ware and virus) where they would start to boot up, then shut down. Hit the power button again, they may or may not boot up. I couldn't understand why they were doing this, since I knew them to be working computers, hardware wise. I decided to change out the power cord on chance and they worked perfect. The old cord looked fine, but obviouse wasn't.

I didn't know if you were maybe using a different cord upstairs and downstairs, or bringing it with you. Thought it was worth a shot.