The "X" Factor

[Neomage]

As some of you may recall, the reason I made my earlier thread on buying a new computer was I thought my current compuetr would pretty much fail sometime soon. Well it finally has, but not completely. Occasionsally it will work fine(as it is now) but the majority of the time it will absolutely refuse to even boot up, although it is powered on. It took me a while, but I finally figured out what makes this fusterating problem tick on/off: rebooting my computer.

What I mean is, one day after school I can come home, turn on my computer and it will work fine. I get bored, turn it off, and come back an hour later, turn it on and it will not work. An hour later, still nothing. In fact, it refuses ot boot up for the rest of the night.

The next morning, about 8 hours later, it works again. I turn it off, reboot, and it won't work. I get back from school, and it works again. Turn it off, reboot, and it won't work.

It seems my computer now requires obscenely large amounts of time to "cooldown" (although physicly it's not hot at all, not even one bit). One rather obvious solution to this problem is simply to leave the computer running untill I get a new one, although I am kind of worries that make the problem worse. It seems to be that one physical part is failing(eitehr the head drive or cooling system?) but I am not sure which.

Anyway, I'm wondering is anyone has had this problem in the past or knows what is wrong, and if there is any way to fix it? Is it safe to leave my computer on for 8-9 hours at a time in the state it's in?

[Omniblast]

Re: The "X" Factor

I've had something similar before.
I replaced the motherboard and cpu.
It works fine now.

I currently have this as my spec:
EVA 680i Motherboard
CPU 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo E6750
2.0 GB DDR2 RAM Corsair TWINX2048-C4
Western Digital Raptor 150
Silverstone Modular 650 or 750 (can't remember) PSU
Lite-on Lightscribe 40x16x16 DVD-R drive

Currently Air-cooled, using a Zalman, previously water-cooled, however upon inspection I noticed that my water cooled unit, the thermal paste was melting underneath the waterblock. (not sure why this is..., decided to fiddle with a water unit another time.)

I leave my computer on all day and night before as well. The reboots some how kill it. (I havn't figured out why yet either.)

[Mhurron]

Re: The "X" Factor

It's probably just the motherboard that's dying. Crappy capacitors, an electrical short somewhere or something electrical like that.

[Feba]

Re: The "X" Factor

mhurron is right, it's probably dying, however I can think of a couple things about this:

I had a similar problem with a laptop once. Turns out there was a hairline crack in the mainboard. It could be a matter of how your PC is positioned if this is the case, sometimes it would work, and sometimes it won't.

Secondly, it couldn't hurt to go buy a few new fans for your case. They'll cost 10$ a most, and will let you rule that out, plus you can always recycle them on your new PC.

[Lunaryn]

Re: The "X" Factor

Worth noting also that I had a system start dying in this way, and the problem turned out to be a bad power supply. Unfortunately, this can be hard to test, as the failing power supply might seem to work fine on another board/cpu that has lower power requirements or is less sensitive to the problem.

The easiest thing to check for is the standard blown capacitors. Look at the electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard (the plastic-wrapped cylinders with metal tops). If one of these has failed you will generally see that the metal on top is warped and there may be fluid leaking out.

The adventurous might try to find and solder in place replacement capacitors, but most people consider this time to dump the board entirely.

If the motherboard looks okay on visible inspection, you might also try disconnecting the CD-ROM drive and maybe swapping in a cheaper video card and see if that makes any difference. Probably not, but if disconnecting such devices makes the system more likely to power on, it's probably the power supply.

You can probably get a decent new power supply (make sure it has the same or higher power rating in watts) for between $20 and $40. Motherboard prices vary widely depending on spec and manufacturer, the cheap ones might only cost about as much as a power supply but good ones can run around $80+ easily. Unfortunately, it may be hard to determine for certain which is the problem without replacing one and seeing if that solves the problem.

FWIW, power-supply is a fairly simple swap-in replacement, while a motherboard replacement is pretty major surgery and you may want to consider a full OS reinstall in such a case. Also, a lot of people prefer/recommend to replace CPU and motherboard together. Note that CPUs tend to be pretty expensive, expect to pay at least $100 for something decent, though one can occasionally do better (Fry's sometimes has some ECS motherboard + CPU combos that are pretty cheap overall. ECS motherboards are among the aforementioned cheap boards, but not worthless, and the bundles often cost less than the CPU alone. If you're in an area that has Fry's, anyway.)

[Feba]

Re: The "X" Factor

if Onion has to do more than replace his power supply he'd be better off buying a new box

[WovenDarkness]

Re: The "X" Factor

if Onion has to do more than replace his power supply he'd be better off buying a new box

Very true.....very true indeed.

[Nuriko]

Re: The "X" Factor

As a possible quick fix, try cutting the power (switch at the back/pull the plug) to the power supply after shutting down. It might not quite be getting the idea that it's off right away...