Question for you computer experts

[Mike Williamson]

OK, I know some of you were computer techs in your former lives, or still are in your present life. I have some issues I could use some guidance with...

1. My current computer has been having issues. It is a home-built Pentium D 3.2G with an Intel motherboard. It's worked fine, but the processor heat sink has problems clogging with dust and getting too hot. Runs fine if I clean it out periodically...until now. It shut down on me sometimes night before last. couldn't get it started up...When I hit the power button, the fans kick on for a split second, and shut off and of course nothing happens further. I pulled the processor and made sure there wasn't dust or anything in there, and re-seated it. Machine still wouldn't fire up. A few hours later, I tried firing it up, and it started just fine, booted normally, everything seemed fine. Shut down again sometime in the next couple hours. Got it started again, and shut down within 10 minutes. Let it sit for a couple hours, and got it going again, ran for an hour, and shut down. I mean, it just blinks completely off, as if you'd pulled the power cord. No warning, no error messages, no nothing. When it is running, the intel software shows the voltage for the board and processor to be within proper range. Was unable to get it running again last night. In my efforts to rule out problems, I pulled the graphics card and modem (the only cards in the machine), no luck. Pulled the memory one card at a time, no luck. I unhooked the DVD drives and other peripherals such as a card reader, floppy drive, etc. No luck. Unplugged the SATA hard drive. No luck. Could this be a power supply problem, or is it possible that in overheating the processor it was damaged to the point where it runs fine sometimes (no decrease in performance) but sometimes I won't work at all? Or could it be a motherboard problem?

2. I have a new system I got just to get back up and running for the time being. It is an Athlon 4000. I tried swapping the IDE drive with my SATA drive, and it starts up, until the windows boot screen shows up, then it reboots immediately. I'm running XP Pro on the old drive, the new computer has XP media edition. I had hoped to just swap drives and run the new machine off the old drive. I tried putting the SATA drive in, with the IDE drive set as Master, Cable Select, or single...no matter what setting, it still tries to boot off the SATA drive, even after changing the boot drive selection at the initial screen. Any suggestions here? Is it possible to have an SATA drive and an IDE (ATA) drive in the same machine and boot from the IDE? Or, what possible reasons would the new machine not want to start up windows on the old drive?

I know, lots of questions, lots of possibilities. Any advice is appreciated!

[JohnW]

Hi Mike,

Without seeing it in person, tough sometimes to make a prediction, but since i'm the full time techie, I'll give it a stab.

For problem #1, you took the words out of my mouth, definitely a power supply or an overheating issue. I would start with the power supply. Many machines built these days, homegrown or commercial, use no-name or cheapo power supplies. I built my pc myself and made the mistake of not putting in a high grade power supply initially. I found myself upgrading my parts over time, but never had a problem with the power supply til recently. I took the plunge and put an Antec 350 watt power supply in and haven't had a problem since, except, I wished I had bought a 450-500 watt. The only problem is that a power supply isn't cheap. You could easily go and buy another higher grade fan for your PC for $20 or under since it's the cheapest of the two. My power supply was around $80, but you can get them a little cheaper at newegg.com if you look for sales.

For problem #2, I haven't messed with SATA drives much, the newer pc's I work on have them, but you might look in the BIOS settings and see if it's set in there to start on the SATA drive. If it is , make the change to Auto, if it's not, it might not like the drivers that are set in the registry. You might have already tried this, I see you said, you changed it in the 'initial screen'. If it's data that you are trying to get off the old IDE onto the SATA, then just let the SATA be the primary and attempt to slave the IDE and then toss the IDE when you're done. I'm not sure why you'd rather have the IDE, because the SATA drive is much faster. Let me know your results.


John W.
Superior Pressure Washing
Fayetteville, GA

[Mike Williamson]

Originally Posted by JohnW

Hi Mike,

Without seeing it in person, tough sometimes to make a prediction, but since i'm the full time techie, I'll give it a stab.

For problem #1, you took the words out of my mouth, definitely a power supply or an overheating issue. I would start with the power supply. Many machines built these days, homegrown or commercial, use no-name or cheapo power supplies. I built my pc myself and made the mistake of not putting in a high grade power supply initially. I found myself upgrading my parts over time, but never had a problem with the power supply til recently. I took the plunge and put an Antec 350 watt power supply in and haven't had a problem since, except, I wished I had bought a 450-500 watt. The only problem is that a power supply isn't cheap. You could easily go and buy another higher grade fan for your PC for $20 or under since it's the cheapest of the two. My power supply was around $80, but you can get them a little cheaper at newegg.com if you look for sales.

I put in an Ultra 500w power supply, supposed to have been a good one...has the custom cables, so you only connect the ones you need. Yesterday, when it shut down on me the last time, after an hour, I had the temp monitoring software up and temps were fine. No alerts came up, nothing. Just "blink" and it was off. Just like you'd pulled the power cord...so system shutdown or anything.

Could it be possible that the power supply is overheating, and just cutting off? I may pull it out and see how dirty it is inside. The whole system is only 8 months old, so it can't be THAT dirty...I've run them for years with no problems, but we'll see.

When I built this one, I put (as far as I know) all top quality parts in, with the exception of a couple peripherals where quality/price wasn't that important (card reader, etc).

Originally Posted by JohnW

For problem #2, I haven't messed with SATA drives much, the newer pc's I work on have them, but you might look in the BIOS settings and see if it's set in there to start on the SATA drive. If it is , make the change to Auto, if it's not, it might not like the drivers that are set in the registry. You might have already tried this, I see you said, you changed it in the 'initial screen'. If it's data that you are trying to get off the old IDE onto the SATA, then just let the SATA be the primary and attempt to slave the IDE and then toss the IDE when you're done. I'm not sure why you'd rather have the IDE, because the SATA drive is much faster. Let me know your results.

Nope, the new drive is IDE, the old drive with all the data is SATA. I'd prefer to just swap drives, and then I can fix the other system when I have time, but that doesn't seem to work. Just goes through a boot cycle endless loop.

No matter what I do, as far as setting in the BIOS or on the jumper on the IDE drive, it boots from the SATA drive if it is hooked up. Works just fine, of course, with just the IDE, since that's how it came from the store. That's what I'm using now. I just do NOT want to go through having to reinstall ALL my software, drivers, etc etc ad nauseum. That, and right now, I have no way to access the old data. Last resort, I could get an SATA enclosure and hook it to the new system via USB, but that'll take a few days to get the enclosure, since no one in town sells an SATA enclosure off the shelf. Tiger Direct has one for $30.00.

Best solution is to fix the stupid machine and return this one...since when I bought it the idiot saleman told me "Oh yeah, they're ALL SATA drives now, no one is using IDE anymore. Won't be a problem at all to swap drives".

It IS a decent machine, haven't tried anything that uses a lot of resources yet, but it seems quick enough. AMD Athlon 64 4000+ processor. If I do stick with this machine, I just with the memory on the old machine was compatible...I have DDR2 i n that one, regular DDR in this one, and the slot configuration is slightly different.

[mikew]

Originally Posted by Mike Williamson

1. My current computer has been having issues. It is a home-built Pentium D 3.2G with an Intel motherboard. It's worked fine, but the processor heat sink has problems clogging with dust and getting too hot. Runs fine if I clean it out periodically...until now. It shut down on me sometimes night before last. couldn't get it started up...When I hit the power button, the fans kick on for a split second, and shut off and of course nothing happens further. I pulled the processor and made sure there wasn't dust or anything in there, and re-seated it. Machine still wouldn't fire up. A few hours later, I tried firing it up, and it started just fine, booted normally, everything seemed fine. Shut down again sometime in the next couple hours. Got it started again, and shut down within 10 minutes. Let it sit for a couple hours, and got it going again, ran for an hour, and shut down. I mean, it just blinks completely off, as if you'd pulled the power cord. No warning, no error messages, no nothing. When it is running, the intel software shows the voltage for the board and processor to be within proper range. Was unable to get it running again last night. In my efforts to rule out problems, I pulled the graphics card and modem (the only cards in the machine), no luck. Pulled the memory one card at a time, no luck. I unhooked the DVD drives and other peripherals such as a card reader, floppy drive, etc. No luck. Unplugged the SATA hard drive. No luck. Could this be a power supply problem, or is it possible that in overheating the processor it was damaged to the point where it runs fine sometimes (no decrease in performance) but sometimes I won't work at all? Or could it be a motherboard problem?

Mike,

Sounds like power supply to me. I just replaced my power supply about a month ago with similar symptoms.

Mike

[Mike Williamson]

Originally Posted by mikew

Mike,

Sounds like power supply to me. I just replaced my power supply about a month ago with similar symptoms.

Mike

Well, just pulled the power supply, opened it up, and blew it all out. Not too dirty, but there was a bit of dust in there. Things fired up, which is an improvement. Not sure how long it'll run tho, I have to put the whole dang thing back together after tearing it apart last night trying to rule out component problems. Once I get it back together, I will make sure both fans in the power supply are spinning.

God I hope it's as simple as a power supply problem!


Thanks, guys!

[Beth n Rod]

Moving this to the geek forum and suggesting you surf to http://forums.techiehq.net/

Beth

[Mike Williamson]

Originally Posted by Beth n Rod

Moving this to the geek forum and suggesting you surf to http://forums.techiehq.net/

Beth

Yep, there are a couple threads there that point to the power supply also.

Cleaned it out, fans are running ok, machine booted and ran for a few minutes (no screen, no HD right now) but it did boot, several times. I'm putting everything together now, and we'll see what she does.

And whaddaya mean, GEEK forum?

[Mike Williamson]

Ok...back up and running, but whether it shuts down again is the question. If it does, my next step is to get a power supply and replace this one.

Seems like nothing is working right lately! Burner crapped out Sunday night, computer died yesterday morning, and when I went to put my contacts in, after dicovering a dead computer, I found we had no water! Spent all day yesterday pulling the well piping and replacing the jet valve (about 30' down the well) and the foot valve (about 60' down the well). We have water! Now I'm waiting for either truck to break down, or the PW motor to sieze up. LOL!

[Mike Williamson]

OK...is it normal for the CPU core voltage to fluctuate? It's still within safe limits, but it is fluctuating between 1.212V and 1.306V. The 12v reading is also fluctuating, between 12.25 and 12.438. The other readings are constant as far as I can tell (5v, 3.3v, and the CPU I/O) Could this be part of the problem??