Hello,

This is a bit of a strange one, but it's been annoying me ever since I built this PC about a year ago.

About 50% of the time, the PC will simply not start up. The fans come on full-blast, but nothing else happens with it until I restart it and try again.

It's never been overclocked or modified whatsoever, it's just a standard Core 2 Duo machine which I was building on a budget a while back.

Any ideas, please?

Peter.

Edit: Renamed thread so I can use this thread to keep my various computer issues together.

Right, could be a multitude of things.

First, have you tried clearing the CMOS? It's surprising how much of a difference (on errors) clearing it can make. Also, tried reseating your RAM/Graphics card (if any)/PCI cards?

Is there anything like a USB drive/CDROM in it when you boot? Sometimes, my PC won't boot if I leave a Memory stick in the front.

Thats all I can think of at the mo.

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your reply.


I tried clearing the BIOS a few times using the jumper on the motherboard, but this never made a difference unfortunately. Is this the right way to clear the beast?


I shall try that, thank you. I have four sticks of RAM, a PCI-express graphics card and a multitude of useless PCI cards, so I will definitely check that all of these are connected okay.


My old PC used to have problems booting with a USB drive connected, but I don't think that is an issue here to be honest. The PC doesn't even get around to reading any USB drives or CD drives.

Peter.

Cool,

Yeah, the easiest way BIOS is to use the jumper. You could try taking the little watch battery out (there should be a clip on it somewhere).

Oh btw, what are its temps? Is the CPU cooler clogged up with dust? Sometimes on the Athlon XP machine, the PC wouldn't boot if it got hot.

The temperatures are well below 50°C even under stress and the CPU gets regularly cleaned so doesn't have too much dust.

Thanks,

Peter.

I had a problem like this on a pc and it turned out every now and the for no reason it wouldnt like four sticks of mem yet the mem all past memtest.

Try it with two sticks of RAM in each of the slots.

I tried that but I don't think my RAM enjoyed sharing slots

I know what you meant and I'll give it a go next weekend, thanks.

Peter.

Heyup mate,

Same thing happened to my dads PC recently, turns out it was the OCZ Stealth Xtreme 600w power supply going bad... a new one is on its way anyway, maybe it's worth you trying another power supply?

Cheers, Snubbs

If you reseat things and are still having problems try taking it down to the minimum config, two stick of RAM, only one CPU, no graphics card, one hdd, etc. Try booting a few times and see how it goes, build up the config to see what seems troublesome...

Ben

I shall try all of your suggestions when I have time over next weekend

Unfortunately, I think Snubbs may have a very good point there. The PC is using an extremely cheap power supply, so this may explain a lot!

Thanks everyone,

Peter.

Ewww. Cheap generic PSUs are the cause of most problems. They're absolutely sh1te dude.

Put it this way: Custom PC reviewed a 400w generic PSU, and it outputted about 250w before it a sploded.

Have you thought about changing the CMOS battery on the motherboard as might be that running out of juice.

As soon as I come to investigate this weekend, the problem seems to have somehow rectified itself. I have started up the PC dozens of times and it has booted every single time.

I think it may be a related issue, but the PC keeps freezing very regularly. For example, I was just editing the paragaph spacing on a small Microsoft Word document before, and it completely froze on me. There are no BSODs or errors, just a static display on the monitor and the keyboard and mouse stop responding.

Is it likely to be a PSU issue? If so, could anybody recomend a decent PSU for less than £50.00, please?

Thank you,

Peter.

Could it be your HDD? I remember when I had a hard drive fail on me, my PC exhibited similar symptoms.

What output would you be looking for from a PSU? I think you could get an Antec Earthwatts with decent output for that money.