Thread: Computer Mags- Need Your Input

My computer is acting increasingly wonky and I'm not sure what the best way to proceed in troubleshooting it is at this point.

It all started about 6-8 months ago when it would occasionally fail to boot. No BIOS post, no nothing. Hit the power button, the power and HD LEDs would come on, the monitor would indicate it's receiving a signal and you could hear the fans and HD start up but nothing appeared on the screen. After the initial HD spin up there was no activity on the HD either (LED stops blinking, no noise from HD) and the monitor would go back to standby mode. This is not a video card problem - there is a built-in card on the motherboard and an add-on card and the behavior is the same with the monitor connected to either. And, as mentioned, no activity on the HD after the initial spin up. Hit the reset button and it will boot fine.

This problem is very random. Most of the time it boots fine, but I'd say about 1 out of 5 times it fails to boot.

More recently I'm having problems with applications launching and installing Windows Updates. Click an app in the start menu, you get the little spinning beachball then that goes away and nothing for about 20-30 seconds or more. Computer behaves as if you didn't click anything. If you just sit and wait the app you clicked will eventually launch. This doesn't happen with every app. Most noteably with Thunderbird e-mail, sometimes with my old copy of Photoshop, and with Microsoft Office stuff.

Several Windows updates have failed to install now. They sit in the queue and the computer attempts to install them every time I shut it down but they fail with an unknown error. I've tried the Microsoft fix it tools and done the basic troubleshooting the MS support website suggests to no avail.

Yesterday I decided I'd start all over and spent the afternoon watching football (Seahawks dismantling of Cowgirls!) and doing a mind-wipe - I repartititoned and reformatted the C: drive and installed a fresh copy of Win7. The install took bloody forever - way longer than it did the first time I installed Windows 7 on this machine. Seemed to hang up a lot. Also, the update process literally took a couple hours and multiple updates failed to install.

Tonight I'm going to run memory testers on it. If those don't find any problems I'm not sure what else to do? Suggestions on how to proceed beyond this point would be much appreciated. This is the first time I've had a computer not act like brand-new after a fresh Windows install.

If it matters, this is a home-built machine with the following specs:

AMD Athlon 4-core processor 3.4 ghz.
Gigabyte Mobo
32gb Corsair RAM (4x8 gb modules)
MSI ATI Radeon 5700 based video card with 4gb
C: = WD 7200 RPM 250gb
D: = Hitachi 7200 RPM 1TB
Antec Earthwatts 650W power supply

Any suggestions on where else to look for support would be much appreciated also. I know there's a fair number of computer savvy folks around here, but if there are any good support forums with an army of techies who get off on helping out shlubs like me out there, I'd like to hear about them.

Your PSU is probably dieing which is causing hardware failures. Get a quality corsair or something.

Could definitely be the psu, but typically your computer either turns on, or not.
Make sure you DISABLE the integrated video if you have a gfx card added on. Or try pulling it out and only running the integrated. That can do weird stuff.
Also try taking the ram sticks out a pair at a time and seeing if it will boot up. Double check all your connections while you have it open.
Is anything happening with the system time, like speeding up or slowing down? Weird things can happen if that little button battery on your mobo starts to go. Like not finding the bios.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

so first thought was bad PSU though it could be a failing hard drive, especially if it is having program issues and reformating is slow. there are a a bunch of utilities to check the hard drive health.

have you moved the tower at all? maybe something has gone lose

Originally Posted by crackboy

so first thought was bad PSU though it could be a failing hard drive, especially if it is having program issues and reformating is slow. there are a a bunch of utilities to check the hard drive health.

have you moved the tower at all? maybe something has gone lose

If it was a hd you would still get a BIOS startup. I vote power supply. Might want to check memory seatings as well.

I'd concur that it could be both the power supply AND the HDD, the first leading to the second or no relation at all. I'd start with checking for loose wires. Checking out the memory might not be a bad idea - I doubt that's where your problem is but it's free to check. Failing that I'd try replacing the PSU.

Once you've got it booting reliably I'd run a chkdsk and go from there. Chkdsk will often make those weird HDD related issues go away.

Not getting the BIOS is indicative of CMOS/mobo problems, but I suppose it could be power.
Are you blue screening at all? That would be RAM or hard disk.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

We get that from time to time.... Boots to blinking cursor or black screen. Generally replacing the psu fixes it. Failing psu also leads to HDD problems that manifest as "wonky" behavior. IME bad memory is a little more random than what he's experiencing.

Could be CMOS/mobo - but that's a little more involved fix than psu, or more expensive.

Agreed that it's likely PSU, RAM or motherboard.

However, those Antec earthwatts are pretty good units from what I hear. I would start with ram, 32gb definitely places you in a very small minority. If it's pretty quickly obvious that it's fucked, run a single stick at a time and see if it goes away, then try two, then try all four. Problems when trying a single stick are RAM issues, problems with all when single sticks are fine means motherboard issues.

Just wondering, why do you have 32 gb of ram?

Originally Posted by angrysasquatch

Agreed that it's likely PSU, RAM or motherboard.

This. A failing ram chip can cause all kinds of wacky fun.

Have you check to see if there is a firmware update for the mobo? Maybe doing a mobo flash update could help (do not attempt if you're not clear on the procedure, you can brick your machine if you screw up. It is fairly easy through)

Originally Posted by Mustonen

We get that from time to time.... Boots to blinking cursor or black screen. Generally replacing the psu fixes it. Failing psu also leads to HDD problems that manifest as "wonky" behavior. IME bad memory is a little more random than what he's experiencing.

Could be CMOS/mobo - but that's a little more involved fix than psu, or more expensive.

Changing a $2 watch battery, not the motherboard.


Just read the original post again. Sounds like it might actually be a failing hard disk. Are you getting weird chksum files or whatever their called?
It sounds like the disk isn't spinning. If everything else is turning on, but booting and file transfers are the problem, it probably isn't the psu.
In my somehow limited experience, when it comes to psus, either the shitty little fan in it fails, or the computer won't turn on.
There's a way to test it with a multimeter. You need a paperclip bent into a u to get around the atx power switch. I think you put it in the 1st pair of pins of the main connector. Can't remember. Of course you'll need a meter that can take over 5 amps d/c.
Did you check your sata power connections?

Failing ram chips will give you blue screens. So can failing harddrives, but not if they won't spin.

Failing mobo battery will make the system's bios act funny, including the system clock.

I've also had bad experience with adding a gfx card to an integrated graphics board, but that was a long time ago, and it might have been the above problem.

Might be the psu. Try a differnt power connector for the harddrive, if you have it.


Either way, it might be that your harddrive is not spinning for one reason or another, but you'd still get a post.

Ok, it's probably power.

/stream of consciousness

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

Or your northbridge is failing.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

I can't see why it would be the HDD causing the boot problems I'm experiencing. I'd still get a BIOS post, wouldn't I? I've had HDDs fail before and the machine would always seem to start normally (BIOS post) then stop with a "no operating system found" or similar message. The machine doesn't even need to have a HDD in it to get a BIOS post.

I could understand the HDD causing the slow file-transfers and application launching, and can see how the PSU could lead to that. Hmmm. I'll run some tests on the HDD also.

No problems with the system clock, never a blue screen or any other crash once the machine is up and running.

On-board video is disabled.

32gb RAM because it's cheap and I use it. (Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, 24mb RAW files from my camera, 20min. HD video clips, web browsing, music playing, e-mailing, usually a combination of many of those.)

Thanks for all the ideas so far, keep 'em coming!

I haven't had a desktop in quite some time, but your symptoms sound familiar.

Turned out to be a slightly failing power ribbon to the hard drive. The ribbon had a kink in it, and while most of the times it would be connected, but if the table vibrated ever just right, the copper wire inside the ribbon would disconnect...causing symptoms that you speak of.

Check your HD power ribbon thoroughly.

--

So you got no BIOS post when the HD wasn't working?

I suppose it's possible, but this runs against my experiences from the past. I've even turned computers on with no HDDs in them just to see what they would do and the BIOS always posted. It's been quite a few years since I did something like that though - have the way Mobos/BIOS operate changed much in the last 8-9 years?

Had a workstation once where the only way it would turn on reliably was by lying it on its right side. Anything else got you a blinking cursor. Once the novelty factor wore off we bought it a new PSU and it was back to normal.

"This computer won't turn on!"

"Yeah...it probably needs to lay down."

"What?!"

"Yeah....just lay it on its side....like so.....shhhhhhh.... Now try it."

{computer turns on immediately}

"What the hell???"

One way to find out, Willie, would be to unplug your HDD...... I think it's safe to say, though, that it probably isn't JUST your HDD.

If you really want to get bloody ugly and down, set up another machine as a kernel debugger.

You'll need a special serial cable for this and some bcdedit commands to enable debugging on the target machine.

You can find recipes for setup here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/wind.../gg463009.aspx .

If you can use your COM ports, do so. USB debugging can be flakey, particularly on older machines.

If you're having a hardware failure after the kernel loads, the debugger will give you some information about what it is.

If you're having a hw failure before the kernel loads, resurrecting your machine is kind of futile.

The more I think about it, the less I think it's the PSU. It would give you problems on high load applications (that uses your graphics and CPU to max, ie gaming or newer Adobe products), not so much on startup. You can cross it off for sure by hooking up a voltmeter to any unused 4-pin lead, the black wires are ground and the other two are +12v and +5v, should be apparent which is which. It won't be dead nuts on 12v, don't freak out, +- 0.6v is within spec.

This doesn't take the connectors into account, get it into its non booting state and open it up and fiddle with all the wires going into the motherboard and hard drives. It's unlikely, but still possible that a wire is getting a poor connection.

Still, check the ram first. I'm betting it's either a bad stick of ram or whatever AMD's equivalent of a northbridge (mobo component) is.

If the power supply tests good (voltage should be within 10 % of the rating- 5 volt and 12 volt both exist...) then how old is the motherboard? It could be the caps (Capacitors) on the board - do any of them look like they are bulging or leaking?
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...QEwBQ&dur=1383 Photo of a capacitor.

Your problem of course is it is so random, so it is hard to replicate. Have you run any hard drive tests? I do not suspect it is ONLY the hard drive (since you state sometimes it does not even get to the bios screen) but the time it took to do a new load of Windows could indicate that the C drive (assume that is the older of the 2 drives in the system) is starting to get flakey. But if the power supply voltages are steady and on the mark, then I'd suspect you maybe ready for a motherboard (or CPU- but less likely)...

Also if the issue starts happening more and more the longer you use the system (or leave the system running all the time, then it could be the CPU fan or cooling fan causing system overheating. Some boards have a chipset fan mounted on them also and they can quit spinning and get flakey issues due to the extra heat. If the fans seem to be spinning and they are not really dirty, then you could remove the CPU fan, clean the heat sync compound material and apply some new Artic Silver or similar heat compound.

Buster - is that English? Seriously, I have an idea of what you're talking about and I sure appreciate your taking the time to type it but I don't have another computer nor enough time in the day to try to figure out how to do what you're suggesting even if I did. I'd rather just buy a new MOBO and PSU...

Thanks for the info on the PSU voltage tests. Wish I'd known about that yesterday.

I took the computer out of my room where it normally lives, took it all apart, cleaned all the dust out of it, cleaned all the shmutz off the keyboard and did the Windows reinstall out in my living room while watching football. Could've easily tested the PSU at that time.

Everything in this computer is pretty much the same age. I bought everything EXCEPT the ATI video card and the second 16gb RAM at one time. When I bought a copy of Premiere I added the second 16gb RAM and the ATI video card. That was maybe 6 months after I first built the machine, so everything's close enough to the same age.

The machine is only turned on when I'm home and using it. I turn it off every night when I'm done screwing around and it's off until I get home from work the next day. Pretty sure the fans are all working, I can hear and feel the case fans running and when I'm editing pictures in photoshop or Lightroom I can hear the CPU fan speeding up any time the processor is being loaded.

Yes, the booting issue is random, but the overall performance has become a constant problem. I could live with the occasionaly failed boot, just poke the reset button and everything was fine but now I'm getting annoyed with how long it takes to launch apps and the multiple failed Windows update installations has me worried.

I just created a bootable CD with Memtest86 on it so going to give that a try. Seems to be highly regarded around the netdom. Will report back when that's done.

Thanks again for everyone's input.

But How old is the motherboard? 1 year, 3 years, or what (best estimate)

How many memory modules do you have in the system?

Memory tests Memtest86, Windows Memory Test and some others are all on the Ultimate Boot CD (Dos version) along with hard drive tests and some other burn in tools and tests.

Computer was built 3/20/2011. Problems with booting began cropping up in late 2011.

Memory passed the tests. On to HDD testing, though I'm beginning to suspect it's probably the Mobo. If the HDD passes all tests I'll pull the machine back apart and test the PSU.

Also, I'm a complete idiot - I was thinking I had 4x8gb modules. I have 4x4gb modules for a total of 16gb RAM. Started thinking something was wrong when Memtest only saw 16gb so looked at the receipts I have on file and found I only bought the 4x4 configuration, not 4x8. Also, the PSU is not an Antec Earthwatt (the case is Antec, that's why I thought the PSU was.) The PSU is a Thermaltake TPX-775M. Guess I really ought to look at the receipts next time rather than try to go by memory...

If I have to replace the Mobo I'm going with an Asus. Never had an issue with one of those.

If the motherboard is that new- I'd contact Gigabyte first. Should have a 3 year warranty on it. However they will want you to send the board to them and they will send you another after testing, so you can be without your computer for a week or more depending on the shipping time. If you do not have a second computer for use, may want to purchase a replacement if the tests of the memory, hard drives and CPU all seem to be good and you have good power from the power supply.

When my last motherboard failed (fan header on ASUS AMD board) I ended up just buying a new one and selling the warrantied one I got back. It took weeks to get through the warranty process.

Seems like you're on the right track. For testing stuff I use Memtest 86+ for memory, CrystalDiskInfo for hard drive health stuff, Prime95 for CPU (watch your temps when using this), and the Heaven DX11 Benchmark for testing video card stability (again watch temps when using this). For monitoring HWMonitor, CPU-Z, GPU-Z, and MSI Afterburner. All of these programs are available for free online and should give you a good start at figuring out what might be wrong.

Keep us posted.