A Cold PC Cant Load ?

[MattBee]

I have been living with this problem with my PC for months now.
If its been turned off for the nite, and i come down and turn it on,
it will half load XP and then restart.. sometimes it reboots properly
and tried to load XP again, sometimes it puts garbage up on my screen
and i have to press the reboot button. The strange thing is that if
when i first turn the pc on, i load the bios options, it will sit in
that screen and not reboot.

So to me it appears that if i try to load XP with a cold pc, it
crashes. If i leave it in BIOS till it warms up a bit, its fine.

This problem has stayed even after I bought a new 400W PSU (350W
before) . Ive tried different video cards, ram, and processor. All
give me the same problem.

The temperature of my room is never below 10 degrees celcius.

My motherboard is an older EPOX 8k3a. Anyone got any ideas what part
of my system could be causing this strange problem?

Thankyou, MattBee

 

[w_tom]

Its not clearly a power problem. It is clearly a problem
traceable to many different possibilities. That is a problem
that other have. They jump to conclusions before collecting
facts.

The foundation of a computer is its power supply 'system'.
'System' is more than just the PSU. First verify this
'system' is working. And that required the ubiquitous 3.5
digit meter. No way around that solution - except with
electronic test equipment that costs tens of times more.

Spend the $20 and learn. Most important to you are voltages
on signal called Power Good and on 3.3, 5, and 12 volts.
"Computer doesnt start at all" in alt.comp.hardware on 10
Jan 2004 at
http://tinyurl.com/2t69q and
"I think my power supply is dead" in alt.comp.hardware on 5
Feb 2004 at
http://www.tinyurl.com/2musa

What are these voltages before, how do they transition in
the one second after power switch is pressed, and after power
up?

 

[Dave C.]

I have been living with this problem with my PC for months now.
If its been turned off for the nite, and i come down and turn it on,
it will half load XP and then restart.. sometimes it reboots properly
and tried to load XP again, sometimes it puts garbage up on my screen
and i have to press the reboot button. The strange thing is that if
when i first turn the pc on, i load the bios options, it will sit in
that screen and not reboot.

So to me it appears that if i try to load XP with a cold pc, it
crashes. If i leave it in BIOS till it warms up a bit, its fine.

This problem has stayed even after I bought a new 400W PSU (350W
before) . Ive tried different video cards, ram, and processor. All
give me the same problem.

The temperature of my room is never below 10 degrees celcius.

My motherboard is an older EPOX 8k3a. Anyone got any ideas what part
of my system could be causing this strange problem?

Thankyou, MattBee

It's clearly a power problem. A low voltage condition is causing the
reboots when the system is cold. 99.999% of the time, this would be caused
by a bad (or insufficient wattage) power supply. But the power supply isn't
the only component that regulates voltage. The other one is the mainboard.
Still, I'd try a third power supply, a good name-brand like Fortron or
Enlight or Seasonic or similar, before suspecting that the mainboard is
ad. -Dave

 

[Jon Danniken]

I have been living with this problem with my PC for months now.
If its been turned off for the nite, and i come down and turn it on,
it will half load XP and then restart.. sometimes it reboots properly
and tried to load XP again, sometimes it puts garbage up on my screen
and i have to press the reboot button. The strange thing is that if
when i first turn the pc on, i load the bios options, it will sit in
that screen and not reboot.

So to me it appears that if i try to load XP with a cold pc, it
crashes. If i leave it in BIOS till it warms up a bit, its fine.

This problem has stayed even after I bought a new 400W PSU (350W
before) . Ive tried different video cards, ram, and processor. All
give me the same problem.

The temperature of my room is never below 10 degrees celcius.

My motherboard is an older EPOX 8k3a. Anyone got any ideas what part
of my system could be causing this strange problem?

I'd start by looking closely at the mainboard capacitors. Look for bulging
tops or leaks.
http://www.badcaps.net/

Jon

 

[MattBee]

wow thankyou all for your replies. It will take me a while to get
what i need to test the power, but i can say that in bios at least
the voltages do not appear to be too low when i have first turned it
on from cold. And still does that explain why in bios it will not
reboot, but only when trying to load windows?
Next time i get paid i will fork out on a better PSU.

Thanks all, MattBee