[superstar]

My computer has been freezing, and rebooting sporadicaly this week. Sometimes more than once a day, though it does end up running fine after after a few reboots/shutdowns. I can't seem to find out what the problem may be.

It all started when I was moving some cables connected to the back of my pcs very expensive pci soundcard. So I figured that I may have loosened the pci card inside by moving the cables connected to it too hard. I tried opening up my computer and pressing down the cards real hard, yet the freezes/reboots still happen. The next thing you know I turned my computer on today and the pc started up, than froze at the desktop.

& now worse... I shutdown my computer manually [holding the power button for 5 secs] after it froze, and powered it back on. Now my power supply turns on, so do the power/hdd lights, but my HP bios screen which flashes on every boot with an "All's OK" motherboard beep does not show [you don't hear the beep either]. Nor does any image appear on my monitor. My monitor light is now blinking as if it isn't connected to anything!!!

:crybaby

I don't know what to do, please help... As a precaution I will be taking out all pci cards, cleaning the gold connectors on the cards and pci slots, with a lint free cloth dipped in isopropyl alcohol. & hopefully it all works again... Though I think I tried this months ago when this happened last year and it did nothing. I'm not sure, maybe that fixed it...

Just so you know I had scanned my pc yesterday while it was working with Malwarebytes, Spybot, & my Eset antivirus. Nothing bad came up... I also ran check disk, and all was fine... Than I ran Western Digitals "Smart Status" tools and everyting passes at normal values so it can't be the hard drives!

This type of issue has happened before in the past year as I've mentioned before, for about a week just as it is happening now. I can't remember how I fixed it. It may have fixed itself...

What the heck is going on?


Here's what happened the previous time this occured. Problem is this time I'm getting no image, no boot screen, or motherboard beep codes.

http://www.geekstogo...ery-week-or-so/


Thank you in advance.

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May be a PSU, Monitor, Video adapter or mobo.
I'm a little confused because you said you get no video but were able to run all the tests.
Were all the tests run before video stopped?
Did you try a dfferent monitor to make sure it is good or try monitor on another system?

[rshaffer61]

May be a PSU, Monitor, Video adapter or mobo.
I'm a little confused because you said you get no video but were able to run all the tests.
Were all the tests run before video stopped?
Did you try a dfferent monitor to make sure it is good or try monitor on another system?

[Macboatmaster]

If the card is correctly secured with the screw, as shown on my image, or the clip, if that variant of PCI card, then it is well nigh impossible to loosen the card in the slot.
What can occur depending on the amount of force used to insert the connectors, is that the solder joints on the PCB are broken. Even on expensive sound cards the 3.5mm jack sockets are delicate.
However I do not think this is the problem.

I suspect that the connecting to the sound card, the pressing down - real hard- on the PCI cards, (I hope you released the screws before doing so) are all red-herrings, unless you have been so forceful that you have damaged the graphics card PCB, it only needs a sideways strain and you can fracture one of the tracks and if you pressed down really hard you could even damage the motherboard.

However having read many of your previous posts - I would not be surprised to see your reply - worded something to the effect that you are aware of all this.

If the computer has onboard sound and graphics, ie integrated on the motherboard, I tend to think that is where I would start.
Followed by removal of the PSU and replacement with a known good, or testing with a PSU tester, to place it under load. Forget testing with multimter it is a non starter.







rshaffer61 - Hi, READING previous posts by superstar and interrupted by a phone call, before posting. So was not aware of your reply.
Regards
Macboatmaster

Edited by Macboatmaster, 04 July 2011 - 03:09 PM.

[superstar]

Of course I scanned my Pc, and ran tests while it was working yesterday. As I said tge problem is intermittent. But now all the more frequent. And no I did not press down too hard on the motherboard when trying to reseat the cards yesterday.

What I did now is unplug the computer from the wall for a couple of hours. When I plugged it back in the Pc started up fine. I was able to see the Bios screen, hear the "All's good" motherboard beep, and use my Pc for a bit. I than decided to restart after about 20 mins. The computer froze while starting up the desktop, so I had to manually press down tge power button on my tower for it to shut off.

Wanna know the odd thing? My Pc shut off... BUT THE POWER LED STAYED ON!!! I've never seen this happen. OMG this is incredible... I'm stumped... I looked at the power led on for a whole minute than decided to flip the switch on the power supply to "Off," and it went away.

Thanks so much for the help. I'm going to try and clean the copper connectors on tge motherboard now, and reseat the pci cards. Although I really don't think that's the problem.

[rshaffer61]

Sounds like a failing mobo to me. The hd controllers sound like they are intermittent and possibly the mobo itself is failing. Short of taking the system apart and testing it out the case I see no other way to check for everything.

[superstar]

I didn't try cleaning the copper connectors on the pci cards yet. But I did try another psu. And when I plugged it into the wall the power led was on yet the computer wasn't turned on. So I flipped the switch on the psu to off, and than flipped it back on and the power led on my computer tower was off. I turned on the Pc and it booted up fine, displayed the desktop, I used the Pc for a bit, than it just froze after about 5 minutes. I had to manually shut off the Pc by holding down the power button. I rebooted and the Pc turned on without an image on the screen yet again (monitor led blinking as if it weren't connected). So I manually shut the Pc off again, and tried a different hard drive. It booted up fine than the computer randomly rebooted itself out of nowhere.

What's going on? If it is my motherboard how did this happen, and why?

Does anyone know if I can buy the same motherboard and swap it (worse case scenario) without having to reinstall Win Xp?

Thanks

[rshaffer61]

Mobo's fail sometimes faster then we like. They are a electrical component and do fail from time to time.
I've had them be bad right out of the box and others I have right now that are 10 years old and still work.
Without knowing the specs on the system it is hard to tell if you can still get the same mobo or not.

[superstar]

Well I mean I found the same motherboard on eBay. I can get another one that's the same. I just don't know if I'd have to reinstall windows or not. I really don't want to reinstall windows. This was my perfect setup... It took me years to tweak it just the way I liked it. Every program, registry, etc. I don't want to see this bad boy go. Isn't there somewhere I can take it for motherboard repair? Or something I should look at on the motherboard I can potentially fix myself?

[Macboatmaster]

Before you buy the other motherboard
rshaffer61 gave you the way to proceed

Short of taking the system apart and testing it out the case I see no other way to check for everything.

You need to strip everything down to a barebones installation and start from there

[rshaffer61]

Well I mean I found the same motherboard on eBay. I can get another one that's the same. I just don't know if I'd have to reinstall windows or not. I really don't want to reinstall windows. This was my perfect setup.

If it is the exact model number and revision then you should not have to do anything. I just replaced the mobo on my daughters system with the same mobo and everything worked great on first bootup.
In fact hers would not even post either just like yours.

[superstar]

Ok so I've tried the following and the computer still freezes or reboots:

- Different power supply

- Taking out all pci cards

- Using a different hard drive

- Unplugging all disc drives

- Taking out the AGP card and using the onboard graphics with just a simple setup of cpu, ram, mobo, and hard drive


Now I'm still stumped. I haven't tried it without a hard drive at all. Nor have I tried to place the motherboard on a piece of cardboard (to see if something shorting), and try it on there with just the cpu, ram, and psu. But will try that right now. OMG this computer lasted me years... Took me years to tweak every software, bios, etc. Literally years, my first build, and favorite pc. It's going to be hard to find the exact motherboard if that is the ultimate issue. But I have faith I'll find it.

What are the chances that the mysterious issue has caused any damage to my pci cards, agp cards, cpu, ram, hard drive, or other devices? I'd like to know that all my stuff is still working in case I can find the same board. If you have any other advice on this issue let me know...

I FEAR THE DAY I LAY MY MOTHERBOARD TO REST. IT WILL BE A SAD, SAD DAY.

Edited by superstar, 05 July 2011 - 01:31 PM.

[Macboatmaster]

I would try without the hard drive and see if you can get to BIOS without it freezing.

I would then disconnect the header from the switch, power led, reset led, etc and short the two pins for the pwr switch, ensuring of course that YOU have the right two pins, just in case it is the power button switch.

[rshaffer61]

It is really looking like the mobo has failed.
The only other option would be memory or cpu.

[superstar]

I would try without the hard drive and see if you can get to BIOS without it freezing.

I would then disconnect the header from the switch, power led, reset led, etc and short the two pins for the pwr switch, ensuring of course that YOU have the right two pins, just in case it is the power button switch.

I'll try that today as well... From what I understand your saying I should do a "trickle power on." I've never actually done one of those. I know you have to unplug the connectors to all power, reset, hdd leds, power leds, etc. & than trickle the system on by touching the two correct pins. But what do I use to do that, and how just a quick tap? Small metal/aluminum flathead or something? How do I do a hard power off if the system freezes there after without a power button? I could easily flip the psu switch I know. But I'd much rather do it the right way. I don't want to kill myself either.

It is really looking like the mobo has failed.
The only other option would be memory or cpu.

I have a spare cpu, and spare memory. I can try those after...


UPDATE:

Just tried it with no hard drive just cpu, ram, mobo, onboard graphics and it froze after a while.

Edited by superstar, 05 July 2011 - 03:53 PM.

[superstar]

Hmmm weird... So I finally got to running the system totally bare boned on cardboard OUTSIDE of the pc case.

Just cpu, ram, onboard graphics, and psu. NO POWER SWITCH. I did the touch trick with a flathead screwdriver. & the pc froze after about 5-10 minutes...

BUT I than realized that I had the cpu fan unplugged. & touched the heatsink... It was hot as heck! Not dangerous hot, but probably enough to have froze the system.
So I reattached the cpu fan and the pc actually worked like that bare bones on cardboard for a whole hour without freezing!!! The heatsink was nowhere near as hot as it was before either. I'm wondering... With the pc being over 5 years old maybe the Power button is causing this? I can't think of anything else other than that or a shortcircuit which is corrected by laying the motherboard bare on cardboard. I've pressed that power button a million times before. Could that somehow cause the freezing/reboots for some reason if the buttons bad? I have an identical power button that came with the custom case I could try. Should I try adding parts back to the system one by one and see what happens? Or should I be testing ram with Memtest, or cpu with some other software?

Any ideas? I'm so excited that it worked for a bit!!! I shut it off for now.

Thanks