A New Problem

Well, I've replaced the Motherboard in the previous thread and now I'm left with a new question

This computer ran fine for over a year, then all of a sudden this problem appears out of no where.

after putting the computer together today after receiving a new MOBO, the first power up was fine, I restart the computer then nothing, no bios, nada like before

I unplugged the ribbon cable to my Harddrive, powered it on and the bios displays... turned it off, pugged the hard drive in, then turned it back on, the bios displays and it Vista Ultimate 64bit loads fine....

then I proceeded to restart it, no dice, powered it down, then turned it back on, no dice still...

I'm puzzled as to what could be the problem

I'd try an alternate power supply. I'd explain why but it'd take too much time and I don't want to have to reason with the others to justify my belief in this matter, try another power supply and see if that doesn't resolve the problem, or let us know if you've already try a different one with this new board.

I don't have a spare Power supply to plug in at the moment...

hopefully my power supply hasn't gone bad after a year of use.

I've sent it into a computer repair shop, haven't heard nothing back... but If they do any sort of reliable work they'll test the power supply and report back.

though I'm still puzzled as to how a computer can go through a restart cycle and fail to restart and then once the harddrive has been unplugged and thusly having the bios tell me it cannot find a harddrive I plug it back in and everything loads fine...

I've even disconnected the power from the powersupply via the power strip...


and really the power cable is still connected to the hard drive... so I'm doubting severely that the power supply is the culprit..

if you leave the hard drive unplugged, does it consistently go through the POST (the BIOS screens, etc.) fine? If so, then Hash probably got it right with it being the power supply.

well, the only thing I do is unplug the ribbon cable that transmits data, the 4 pin power connector is still plugged in...

but yes it was consistent with posting, after unplugging just the ribbon cable...

hmm weird...

Well, I'll just say this, a failing power supply is like cancer. It can cause a systemic problem that can spread to your mainboard. It basically starts from dirty power, this can mean power surges, brownouts, etc. There's no set rule for how often or how much of an effect it takes to set the following in motion, and you may not even known it's happening until problems like this start.

But basically what starts to happen is the chemical components in the power supply, especially the capacitors, begin to chemically break down from abnormal power situations, it can happen after one instance, and it can happen over a long period of time. When they break down the chemicals seperate and start to create positive pressure inside the capacitors, as a result they begin to swell up, often they begin to leak a corrosive compound out the top of the capacitor.

As this happens the electricity going from the power supply to the mainboard becomes erratic, it begins to overload and/or underload the mainboard. A computer can respond a number of ways, these include not powering on at all, powering on but not POSTing, devices not being properly detected on the mainboard, and in some cases the same effect of the capacitors begin to happen to the mainboard.

Capacitors on the mainboard may begin to swell and leak themselves, further escalating the problem. Hence why I consider this problem to be like a form of PC cancer. Once this has happened your mainboard is fucked.

Is this necessarily the specific problem you're having? I have no way of verifying that, but based off what you've tried and are telling me, it's the next step in diagnosis, and the possible solution I'd be looking at.

Hash;12947135']I'd try an alternate power supply. I'd explain why but it'd take too much time and I don't want to have to reason with the others to justify my belief in this matter, try another power supply and see if that doesn't resolve the problem, or let us know if you've already try a different one with this new board.

No argument here. Power supply is always the very first component I look at.

cliffs for those interested

1. i get a call yesterday to pick up my pc
2. i get there and they then tell me they thought they narrowed it down between either the mobo or video card but after further investigation are still stumped and want to hold onto it
3. while at work my house gets a call from them
4. today i go and pick it up and they think they've got it fixed (something like it restarted flawlessly 50 something odd times) by removing the ram from what id call ram slots 1 and 2 and moved the one in 2 to ram slot 3...
5. they don't charge me a thing because they are not 100% sure whats wrong or if its totally fixed...

a bad memory socket? On a new system board?

I suppose it's possible

the thing is, i haven't tried it on the previous motherboard, i'd just assumed it was either a burnt out motherboard or video card and when the video card didn't fix it (RMAed), i went and replaced the motherboard (bought)...

so I'm wondering (every thing powered on, on the previous motherboard) if the older motherboard still works...

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this was all caused after an update with vista, seeing as I wasn't the last person to shut down the computer, I cant be sure my brother didn't install updates or update upon shutting down

moving the memory to a new socket would have nothing to do with the OS.