How safe is a manual hard boot?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dalboz
  • Start date Start date
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Dalboz

I've been having trouble ever since my PC died on Sunday (it began
randomly rebooting itself; wasn't able to determine the exact cause).
Anyway, I'm trying to replace the offending components (most likely
the PSU, motherboard, CPU, RAM, and oddly enough, the video card,
because when I cleaned that one, the problem got a whole lot worse). I
tried two Intel D865GBF motherboards, both of which had problems, so I
took the last one back and replaced it with an ASUS P4P800
motherboard. The problem I'm having now is that when the BIOS is
initializing and I hit DEL to enter the setup, some POST lines appear
and then the computer shuts down. When I try to bring it back up, it
barely get through the video card BIOS and then shuts down again. I
have to flip the switch on the PSU, wait a few minutes, then turn
everything back on and it does it again. Does anyone know what would
be causing this?

My idea was to disconnect the power switch on the case from the
motherboard and then use a screwdriver the "jump start" the system. I
don't know if this would help. Probably not, but I was wondering how
safe this really is. I always leave my computer on and never turn it
off (reboot occasionally), so disconnecting the front power switch
isn't really much of an issue for me.

My system specs are as follows, if that helps diagnose the problem:

New components:
Pentium 4 3.0 GHZ Prescott 800 MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 motherboard
1 GB of Kingston PC3200 RAM
New case with 400 Watt PSU (can't remember the brand)
Leadtek Winfast A380 Ultra TDH GeForce FX 5950
Sony 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive

Components taken from old system:
120 GB Western Digital Caviar HDD (Primary IDE Master)
20 GB Western Digital Caviar HDD (Primary IDE Slave)
Generic DVD-ROM Drive (Secondary IDE Master)
Yamaha 2400EZ? (Can't quite recall the model number; Secondary IDE
Slave)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Gamer

All ribbon cables are new and came with the mother board. Can anyone
help me?
 
I'm not entirely sure but it sounds like you might have a virus in your
system. Have you tried checking the harddrives for virus infections. Good
luck.
 
Dalboz said:
I've been having trouble ever since my PC died on Sunday (it began
randomly rebooting itself; wasn't able to determine the exact cause).
Anyway, I'm trying to replace the offending components (most likely
the PSU, motherboard, CPU, RAM, and oddly enough, the video card,
because when I cleaned that one, the problem got a whole lot worse). I
tried two Intel D865GBF motherboards, both of which had problems, so I
took the last one back and replaced it with an ASUS P4P800
motherboard. The problem I'm having now is that when the BIOS is
initializing and I hit DEL to enter the setup, some POST lines appear
and then the computer shuts down. When I try to bring it back up, it
barely get through the video card BIOS and then shuts down again. I
have to flip the switch on the PSU, wait a few minutes, then turn
everything back on and it does it again. Does anyone know what would
be causing this?

My idea was to disconnect the power switch on the case from the
motherboard and then use a screwdriver the "jump start" the system. I
don't know if this would help. Probably not, but I was wondering how
safe this really is. I always leave my computer on and never turn it
off (reboot occasionally), so disconnecting the front power switch
isn't really much of an issue for me.

My system specs are as follows, if that helps diagnose the problem:

New components:
Pentium 4 3.0 GHZ Prescott 800 MHz FSB
Asus P4P800 motherboard
1 GB of Kingston PC3200 RAM
New case with 400 Watt PSU (can't remember the brand)
Leadtek Winfast A380 Ultra TDH GeForce FX 5950
Sony 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive

Components taken from old system:
120 GB Western Digital Caviar HDD (Primary IDE Master)
20 GB Western Digital Caviar HDD (Primary IDE Slave)
Generic DVD-ROM Drive (Secondary IDE Master)
Yamaha 2400EZ? (Can't quite recall the model number; Secondary IDE
Slave)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy Gamer

All ribbon cables are new and came with the mother board. Can anyone
help me?
Click to expand...

Hi,

Will it start properly with just the video card and memory installed (eg. no
drives)?
If your memory is in two 512Mb sticks, try it with just one installed.
If it starts OK with just the video card and memory, reconnect the drives,
one at a time and see if it starts OK. If you know all your drives work ok
and it then refuses to start, I would begin to suspect the PSU.
As you say the problems got worse when you cleand the video card, how did
you clean it?

HTH
SteveH
 
SteveH said:
Hi,

Will it start properly with just the video card and memory installed (eg. no
drives)?
If your memory is in two 512Mb sticks, try it with just one installed.
If it starts OK with just the video card and memory, reconnect the drives,
one at a time and see if it starts OK. If you know all your drives work ok
and it then refuses to start, I would begin to suspect the PSU.
As you say the problems got worse when you cleand the video card, how did
you clean it?
Click to expand...

Well, all the drives were taken from a previous computer and were
working before, aside from the random rebooting thing. So I'm doubtful
that it's the drives, but I'll check. The PSU is new with the case and
wasn't having this problem with other motherboards, although those
were having their own problems. I first got an Intel D865GBF
motherboard and the fan and LEDs would turn on but nothing else, not
even POST. After doing a quick search through this group, I discovered
that this problem was not unique, so I exchanged it for the same
model. This one would POST, although it doing some doing to get it to
accept my AGP video card, but it wouldn't recognize anything on the
IDE bus. It couldn't see the harddrives or CD drives, although they
were receiving power. So I got fed up with this board and spent the
extra $20 to get an Asus P4P800, which is having the problem I
described above. BTW, if it helps, the case w/ PSU is an Apex
SuperCase TU-150 Black Mid Tower 400W Case w/ Door. I don't know if
that matters, but maybe the PSUs have reputation. I wouldn't know.

As for how I cleaned the old video card (which I'm not using now), I
removed it from the motherboard, took it outside and cleaned it off
using a Dust-Off air can. The fan filters were pretty much clogged,
and I cleared them out completely (or at least everything that I could
see). Although I'm not using this card now. It was a Leadtek Winfast
A250? (Not sure of the model number now) GeForce4 Ti4600.
 
Manny said:
I'm not entirely sure but it sounds like you might have a virus in your
system. Have you tried checking the harddrives for virus infections. Good
luck.
Click to expand...

The old problem? Yes, I did check them. I run Norton Antivirus and
update the Virus Defs. every day and run a full system scan once a
week. The last check was two days before the comp finally died and the
scan came up clean. But the problem was happening before it that
particular scan.

As for the new comp, I don't think it would be a virus because it
doesn't even get to the point where it will access the harddrives. I
can't even get into the BIOS setup. And this was with the motherboard
straight out of the box.
 
Dalboz said:
"SteveH" <[email protected]> wrote in message

Well, all the drives were taken from a previous computer and were
working before, aside from the random rebooting thing. So I'm doubtful
that it's the drives, but I'll check. The PSU is new with the case and
wasn't having this problem with other motherboards, although those
were having their own problems. I first got an Intel D865GBF
motherboard and the fan and LEDs would turn on but nothing else, not
even POST. After doing a quick search through this group, I discovered
that this problem was not unique, so I exchanged it for the same
model. This one would POST, although it doing some doing to get it to
accept my AGP video card, but it wouldn't recognize anything on the
IDE bus. It couldn't see the harddrives or CD drives, although they
were receiving power. So I got fed up with this board and spent the
extra $20 to get an Asus P4P800, which is having the problem I
described above. BTW, if it helps, the case w/ PSU is an Apex
SuperCase TU-150 Black Mid Tower 400W Case w/ Door. I don't know if
that matters, but maybe the PSUs have reputation. I wouldn't know.

As for how I cleaned the old video card (which I'm not using now), I
removed it from the motherboard, took it outside and cleaned it off
using a Dust-Off air can. The fan filters were pretty much clogged,
and I cleared them out completely (or at least everything that I could
see). Although I'm not using this card now. It was a Leadtek Winfast
A250? (Not sure of the model number now) GeForce4 Ti4600.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Did you try it with only the video card, CPU and memory installed?
If it starts OK like that, but stops working as you start adding the rest of
the stuff, I would start to suspect the power supply, especially if it's
just a generic one that came with the case. Unfortunately, just because it's
a 400w supply, it doesn't mean it provides enough power to operate the
system correctly. Can you lay hands on a different PSU to try in it?

HTH
SteveH
 
Hi,

Did you try it with only the video card, CPU and memory installed?
If it starts OK like that, but stops working as you start adding the rest of
the stuff, I would start to suspect the power supply, especially if it's
just a generic one that came with the case. Unfortunately, just because it's
a 400w supply, it doesn't mean it provides enough power to operate the
system correctly. Can you lay hands on a different PSU to try in it?
Click to expand...

Actually, I got it fixed. I did as you suggested and it didn't work,
so I took the assembled system back to the shop where I bought most of
the parts. The guy did some fiddle and it worked, although he couldn't
figure out what he did to make it work. Didn't cost me anything,
either. I strongly recommend using PC Club to people that have one
nearby.

In any case, I figure out what the problem was with the old system. It
seems that something got corrupted in Windows, because it kept
rebooting at the same spot when I tried to repair Windows. So I had to
format and reinstall and it's working fine so far but...see the thread
titled "Proper Cooling?"

But thank you for the suggestions. I think was trying to find a fast
and easy solution since I had been almost a week without a comp and
was getting anxious.
 
Just out of curiosity, do you have your dual sticks of ram in the proper
slots? On the Asus 865 and 875 chipset boards, the paired ram slots are
matched by color (blue for one dual channel, and black for the other) and I
don't know if it will function with the sticks in adjacent slots rather than
alternate slots.
Herb
 
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