Help needed with unidentified problem
 

Hi all,

My PC is a few years old now. It's self-built consisting of a GF3 gfx card,
abit KT7a mobo, an AMD XP 1600 CPU, a monster Vortex 2 chipset soundcard and
it has 512mb PC-133 RAM. It is running winxp pro. I've never had problems
with it until earlier this year.
I moved house and discovered when I tried to set the PC back up, it would
power-up momentarily and then power down. No Beep codes were given. I
checked all connections to ensure a cable hadn't come lose.
Later on the PC powered up and continued to work ok.
After transporting the PC again a few months back, the Problem resurfaced.
This time it occurs on a daily basis. Sometimes it takes around 10-15
power-on attempts for the PC to power-up fully (Rather than power-down after
a random amount of time.) Once the PC is on it can run for days ok, although
eventually it will turn itself off.
This problem has me stumped. It doesn't seem to be a lose cable. It doesn't
seem to be a hardware failure due to no beep code being given, plus
everything functions correctly when it does finally boot. CPU temp is also
within acceptable limits, so that doesn't seem to be the problem either.
I've even checked the power switch to ensure it isn't faulty.
Has anyone come across a problem like this before? I wonder if it is one of
the problems I've mentioned above, but I'm overlooking something simple - or
perhaps a problem with the power-unit itself.
The fact the PC does run perfectly when it can finally be made to power-up
is the most confusing part.

Any help in solving this would be appreciated. I don't want to start buying
replacement parts without narrowing the problem down to a specific area.

Chris

Check mainboard capacitors as well as anything that "plugs in" - cards,
cables, etc.


"^MisterJingo^" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

My PC is a few years old now. It's self-built consisting of a GF3 gfx
card,
I moved house and discovered when I tried to set the PC back up, it would
power-up momentarily and then power down. No Beep codes were given. I
checked all connections to ensure a cable hadn't come lose.

Hi,

A high suspect would be the PS. I built a machine last year where the
computer would power up and die within 2 minutes. Powering up again it would
stay on for 5 minutes and then shut off. Again it might go for 8 minutes. A
half an hour of this scenerio it would stay on for the rest of the day. I
substituted a known working PS and threw the suspect into another computer
the next day. Suddenly the computer shut down within a minute.
The guess on my part was a leaking capacitor in the PS unit; as it warms
up retains the current charge better closing the hole. I returned the new PS
to Enlight and they sent me another PS in exchange.

--
Jan Alter

or

"Noozer" wrote in message
news:Qmtod.312300$%k.78857@pd7tw2no...
Check mainboard capacitors as well as anything that "plugs in" - cards,
cables, etc.


"^MisterJingo^" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

My PC is a few years old now. It's self-built consisting of a GF3 gfx
card,
I moved house and discovered when I tried to set the PC back up, it
would
power-up momentarily and then power down. No Beep codes were given. I
checked all connections to ensure a cable hadn't come lose.

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 21:57:13 -0000, "^MisterJingo^"
wrote:

Hi all,

My PC is a few years old now. It's self-built consisting of a GF3 gfx card,
abit KT7a mobo, an AMD XP 1600 CPU, a monster Vortex 2 chipset soundcard and
it has 512mb PC-133 RAM. It is running winxp pro. I've never had problems
with it until earlier this year.
I moved house and discovered when I tried to set the PC back up, it would
power-up momentarily and then power down. No Beep codes were given. I
checked all connections to ensure a cable hadn't come lose.
Later on the PC powered up and continued to work ok.
After transporting the PC again a few months back, the Problem resurfaced.
This time it occurs on a daily basis. Sometimes it takes around 10-15
power-on attempts for the PC to power-up fully (Rather than power-down after
a random amount of time.) Once the PC is on it can run for days ok, although
eventually it will turn itself off.
This problem has me stumped. It doesn't seem to be a lose cable. It doesn't
seem to be a hardware failure due to no beep code being given, plus
everything functions correctly when it does finally boot. CPU temp is also
within acceptable limits, so that doesn't seem to be the problem either.
I've even checked the power switch to ensure it isn't faulty.
Has anyone come across a problem like this before? I wonder if it is one of
the problems I've mentioned above, but I'm overlooking something simple - or
perhaps a problem with the power-unit itself.
The fact the PC does run perfectly when it can finally be made to power-up
is the most confusing part.

Any help in solving this would be appreciated. I don't want to start buying
replacement parts without narrowing the problem down to a specific area.

Chris

Check the battery voltage.
Recheck the cards/cables/etc, try unplugging them,
inspecting the contacts and replugging, including power
plugs. Check that motherboard and cards are truely aligned,
that they didn't shift or the case has swayed and deformed
while being moved (more common with cheap/flimsy cases).

Examine motherboard and video card for failed capacitors.
You might do same for power supply, after leaving it
unplugged from AC for at least a few minutes. Check all
fans. Confirm that you dont' have an extra/unused
motherboard standoff that's only shorting out
intermittently.


Take voltage readings with a multimeter.
Finally strip system down to bare essentials to get it to
post, test that, add back minimal parts one at a time until
windows runs and see if you can pinpoint where the problem
starts.

If all else fails, with no other evidence I'd suspect (from
more to less likely):

Power supply
motherboard
video card

EXCEPT, IIRC the KT7A has been known to have some
questionable capacitors, at least on some revisions but I
know not which revisions, so the odds are higher that it's
the motherboard than they'd usually be but certainly not to
be assumed the problem yet... it should be fairly obvious
if the caps are swollen, leaky, residue or such,
particularly the larger ones about the CPU socket, AGP slot,
and memory banks. I am not certain but thought it might
have GCS or (G-)Luxon, something like that, black and gold
or green and gold stripe on them.

If you have spares of any/all of these try swapping in the
spare.