Computer Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter ez_willis
  • Start date Start date
NRS said:
Before doing that though I would try simply removing the hard drive from its chasis while still connected to your PC and hold it in your hand or next to your ear while booting up the PC to see if thats where the noise is indeed coming from..
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Yup. This is the ticket.

I'll let you guys know.

I appreciate all the advice so far.
 
Grinding noise was the case fan. Swapped it out and fixed that problem.

It's still taking a few attempts before starting. I'll swap the power supply out and see if it's that.
 
Bearings worn out huh....

Better replace those, they help circulate air, but I'm sure you knew that already lol.

So now we narrowed it down to a couple less things.

Power Supply (which I think it could be)
Motherboard & Memory.

Let me ask you this though, do you have a modem in the computer? If so pull it out also. Actually pull out all peripheral cards that are not needed. When I was a computer tech (still am but this time it's my part time job & music is my full time job), we had thunder storms here and there that fried modems, and the computer would magically not turn on, or freeze in windows, or turn on & off. Removing all peripherals will allow you to narrow it down to just those three items.

Main one would be Power Supply
Second thing would be well motherboard/memory.

Motherboards can become shorted easier than memory can. If you look at a motherboard, you'll notice hundreds of tiny wires embedded in the board right? When dust particles accumulate on there, with electric currents, you get static electricity, which can jump around through dust and cause shorts (and can also act like a blanket). Which could cause the instabilities your experiencing. Or the memory could be going bad which is probably not what happened.
 
I'd be inclined to say it was a fan of some sort also. I'm just guessing, but if your hard drive fucked up while the computer was running, I don't think it would just restart. I think it would freeze and possibly give you the BSOD. In my experience computers usually just or restart when they decided they may be in mortal danger. Like overheating or something. Possibly if the fan stops for too long? I know I have had fans I have had to replace because they would stop for about 10 seconds or so for no reason and I'd get all sorts of warnings. Do you have any monitoring software on your computer? I know that some monitoring software will just restart your computer if it sees something it doesn't like, such as when a fan speed drops below a certain threshold or if somethings temperature goes above a certain threshold. I know my POST used to go ballistic at me because my fan wasn't spinning at 300rpm the second I switched it on.

And +1 on the modem thing. I have seen that happen too many times. Using a crapped out modem and the pc restarts as soon as I try to dial out.
 
My computer recently developed a problem where is hangs in the BIOS on startup because it says my CPU fan isn't spinning fast enough. I have to power it off and back on once almost every time now.

I found a setting in the BIOS where you can set a low limit for the fan speed, but even at it's lowest setting it still has an error. It can be disabled completely, but I'm reluctant to do that.

I wonder if some motherboards might just automatically shut down to protect the CPU when this happens instead of hanging there...maybe that noisy fan is going too slow.

Edit: Looks like I'm saying the same thing as the above post more or less...oh well...
 
crankypants said:
I wonder if some motherboards might just automatically shut down to protect the CPU when this happens instead of hanging there...maybe that noisy fan is going too slow.

Edit: Looks like I'm saying the same thing as the above post more or less...oh well...
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100% of all newer motherboards have a fail safe program embedded into the bios. Whether it's temp or fan. I know both my systems have a fail safe that if a system fan slows down, it beeps, if the CPU or GPU fan slows down, it'll also beep, if the CPU fan stops, it'll automatically turn off.
 
Mindset said:
Bearings worn out huh....

Better replace those, they help circulate air, but I'm sure you knew that already lol.

So now we narrowed it down to a couple less things.

Power Supply (which I think it could be)
Motherboard & Memory.

Let me ask you this though, do you have a modem in the computer? If so pull it out also. Actually pull out all peripheral cards that are not needed. When I was a computer tech (still am but this time it's my part time job & music is my full time job), we had thunder storms here and there that fried modems, and the computer would magically not turn on, or freeze in windows, or turn on & off. Removing all peripherals will allow you to narrow it down to just those three items.

Main one would be Power Supply
Second thing would be well motherboard/memory.

Motherboards can become shorted easier than memory can. If you look at a motherboard, you'll notice hundreds of tiny wires embedded in the board right? When dust particles accumulate on there, with electric currents, you get static electricity, which can jump around through dust and cause shorts (and can also act like a blanket). Which could cause the instabilities your experiencing. Or the memory could be going bad which is probably not what happened.
Click to expand...

I replaced the fan last night when I pulled the old one out.

No modem, no peripherals.

The computer is only 1 year old. I've taken it out and cleaned it twice in that year. It's not in a dirty environment, either.

As far as the temperature thing, it's not overheating. If the computer is cold, meaning not been on all night, when the power button is pressed, it starts to turn on, before XP even loads it shuts off. It'll do that a couple of times and then turn on and everything is fine.

I checked fan speed and temp in the bios, it read 118 F at startup. It was stable and all fans were running. Is that within range?
 
It does look within range, (which 118 = 47 degrees Celsius)

If the computer is cold, meaning not been on all night, when the power button is pressed, it starts to turn on, before XP even loads it shuts off. It'll do that a couple of times and then turn on and everything is fine
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Before I continue, I'll need to know that without the hard drive in there, does it restart and turn off etc?? Even when left 'on' as long as possible.... This will allow us to completely eliminate the HD issue as a problem.

IF, it does stay on etc, and just sits there (since there's no hard drive installed), than it could be the hard drive itself, which then becomes a different issue. That would become a Memory or HD issue. One, Memory maybe corrupted and when windows starts loading programs etc necessary to run , it restarts.
Two, the MBR (Master Boot Record) is corrupted and causing the system to turn off/restart. There can be two ways (or more) that a MBR would get corrupted, either within' the hard drive itself, becomes a mechanical problem where those sectors dedicated for the MBR is corrupted, or just the MBA itself is corrupted. Either that, or Windows XP may be corrupted, and is just in need of a reinstallation that would/could fix it. The MBR contains info on how i boots of course. However, I still suggest you test the ps too while your at it, so you know for SURE that it isn't/or is the PS. If it was only a blue screen of death, that would have been a whole lot easier problem to fix lol.
 
Willis, this may do nothing, but since you are inside, pull the memory out, and re-insert it, making sure it's properly seated. If there is more than one stick, try them one at a time unless they are required in pairs. I had an odd memory problem that made mine not boot, and continue to try. Something with it trying to use too much power from the MB.
 
Dogman said:
Willis, this may do nothing, but since you are inside, pull the memory out, and re-insert it, making sure it's properly seated. If there is more than one stick, try them one at a time unless they are required in pairs. I had an odd memory problem that made mine not boot, and continue to try. Something with it trying to use too much power from the MB.
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actually that is a valid tip. I've had users run into that problem numerous times.
 
Do you have a high speed connection?

For kicks it may be worth while to run a LiveCD (like Ubuntu or Knoppix).
http://mirror.cs.umn.edu/ubuntu-releases/edgy/ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso

Burn that to a CD and make sure the PC is set to use the CD to start from (it runs from memory so you don't install anything).
This should also get you around the possibility of a hard drive issue. Or possibly a corrupted Windows OS. If the LiveCD runs fine that should eliminate some possibilities.

A word of warning that Ubuntu is slightly different from Windows, if you're not a computer geek it may seem a bit foreign but you should be able to figure it out. You don't actually have to do anything with it except let it run.
 
Even if it's the HD or a fan or whatever, I never turn PCs off. That is when they die. The PC in the kitchen that the babysitter uses and the family, is always on. I set the power settings to never turn off anything but the display. When that PC reboots, it takes several tries to get the hard drive to boot. If I leave it running all the time, I have zero problems. This hard drive is a 20 gig drive that has to be 6 years old anyway. It has been reused and recycled in different PCs a bunch of times. I do data recovery and I know all about hard drives. They all die on stop and start. If you leave them spin, they stay balanced, they stay cool (or at a uniform operating temperature which is more important) and the heads don't stick to the platter. If you let them stop and go through thermal cycles that is when the bearings go.

So, yes I am responsible for global warming by wasting so much electricity. But it's my money. I'll burn it if I want to.
 
Dogman said:
Willis, this may do nothing, but since you are inside, pull the memory out, and re-insert it, making sure it's properly seated. If there is more than one stick, try them one at a time unless they are required in pairs. I had an odd memory problem that made mine not boot, and continue to try. Something with it trying to use too much power from the MB.
Click to expand...

I did that last night.
 
Mindset said:
Before I continue, I'll need to know that without the hard drive in there, does it restart and turn off etc?? Even when left 'on' as long as possible.... This will allow us to completely eliminate the HD issue as a problem..
Click to expand...

Are you saying to remove the hard drive, then power it up?

I had no idea that was possible. :o

I think I'm going to take the problem drive and install it on my recording computer(after I pull mine out). If it does the same thing then we'll know.
 
If you've already determined it's not the power supply/CPU fan/overheating then the next thing I would try is a different stick of RAM. If you've already determined that then it's probably the hard drive. I would put one in that you know is working and see if it works.

If that doesn't work then try the video card. That wouldn't explain the weird noise you heard but sometimes computers can can shut down/restart if the video card is going bad or overheating.
 
danny.guitar said:
If you've already determined it's not the power supply/CPU fan/overheating then the next thing I would try is a different stick of RAM. If you've already determined that then it's probably the hard drive. I would put one in that you know is working and see if it works.

If that doesn't work then try the video card. That wouldn't explain the weird noise you heard but sometimes computers can can shut down/restart if the video card is going bad or overheating.
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The noise was a fan with a bad bearing. I replaced it.

It's an onboard video card.

The computer is on and the kid's doing homework. I'll mess with it tomorrow, if she'll let me. :D
 
cephus said:
Even if it's the HD or a fan or whatever, I never turn PCs off. That is when they die. The PC in the kitchen that the babysitter uses and the family, is always on. I set the power settings to never turn off anything but the display. When that PC reboots, it takes several tries to get the hard drive to boot. If I leave it running all the time, I have zero problems. This hard drive is a 20 gig drive that has to be 6 years old anyway. It has been reused and recycled in different PCs a bunch of times. I do data recovery and I know all about hard drives. They all die on stop and start. If you leave them spin, they stay balanced, they stay cool (or at a uniform operating temperature which is more important) and the heads don't stick to the platter. If you let them stop and go through thermal cycles that is when the bearings go.

So, yes I am responsible for global warming by wasting so much electricity. But it's my money. I'll burn it if I want to.
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lol you know that idea is not unheard of? A lotof music professionals, leave their equipment on just because of that. At Dallas Sound Labs, they haven't turned their equipment off ever, so far going on 30 years, except once, because of a storm. My computer at home usually is always on.
 
cephus said:
Even if it's the HD or a fan or whatever, I never turn PCs off. That is when they die. The PC in the kitchen that the babysitter uses and the family, is always on. I set the power settings to never turn off anything but the display. When that PC reboots, it takes several tries to get the hard drive to boot. If I leave it running all the time, I have zero problems. This hard drive is a 20 gig drive that has to be 6 years old anyway. It has been reused and recycled in different PCs a bunch of times. I do data recovery and I know all about hard drives. They all die on stop and start. If you leave them spin, they stay balanced, they stay cool (or at a uniform operating temperature which is more important) and the heads don't stick to the platter. If you let them stop and go through thermal cycles that is when the bearings go.

So, yes I am responsible for global warming by wasting so much electricity. But it's my money. I'll burn it if I want to.
Click to expand...


This is dead on. I run 2 original P100s (one is a datalogger the other is a printserver) and a P Pro 200 which sits in a garage all with orginal dell hardware (drive, psu etc) that always stay on, short of power failures and so forth, and all three work perfectly and are pushing 12+ years in age
 
The computer stopped powering up altogether tonight.

Dead power supply.
 
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