Is My Computer Starting to Die?

[clevelandtexas]

I've been using the same computer (MOBO) for almost 3 1/2 years now and have never had any hardware problems until now.

Over the past week when I turn on my computer it begins the boot process but within a couple of seconds it hangs and the first stages of the boot process don't even appear on the monitor. The harddrive light stays on for a few seconds then goes off. All my cooling fans are running because they're not connected to the MOBO directly. However, if I push the reset button or power off/on it boots up just fine on the first try.

My first impression is that I have a power supply problem so I swapped out my old one with a different one. This morning the problem reoccurred so I tend to think it is not a power supply problem.

However, can this be an indication that my MOBO is beginning to show its age and that the MOBO's voltage regulator circuitry is weakening? I'm thinking that one of the capacitors is weak and doesn't fully charge immediately.

Any comments are gratefully welcome.

[extreme]

Hard Drive might be getting ready to go.

Did you take out the mobo and look to see if there is a leaking capacitors ?

[clevelandtexas]

Originally posted by extremeg177
Hard Drive might be getting ready to go.

Did you take out the mobo and look to see if there is a leaking capacitors ?


Is there anyway to pre-determine hard drive problems?

I'll check the capacitors when I get home from work.


Thanks.

[Set]

After it boots up does the harddrive seem to accesses slow Does the HD make any noises?

When is the last time ya did a fresh install of the OS?

What motherboard ,Cpu? And Os?


Try runing scandisk on your harddrive

[clevelandtexas]

Originally posted by Set
After it boots up does the harddrive seem to accesses slow Does the HD make any noises?

When is the last time ya did a fresh install of the OS?

What motherboard ,Cpu? And Os?


Try runing scandisk on your harddrive

After boot up my HD is just fine and it doesn't make any noises.

I've been running WinXP for 16 months now so my last fresh install was January 2002.

By MOBO is a Soyo SY-6BA-IV and I'm running a P3-600E CPU.

Scandisk shows no problems.

[Mehmet]

from the way you speak im sure you know how to configure the bios right?

Well, try resetting it, and also, taking out the battery and replacing it..

i had the exact same problem as you aw hile back, it would boot up, but when i restarted it wouldnt boot again until I reset the bios.

[clevelandtexas]

Originally posted by Mehmet
from the way you speak im sure you know how to configure the bios right?

Well, try resetting it, and also, taking out the battery and replacing it..

i had the exact same problem as you aw hile back, it would boot up, but when i restarted it wouldnt boot again until I reset the bios.


What should the battery voltage be?

The pattern I'm seeing is that I have the problem in the morning after the computer has been off for the night. If the computer is turned on and off during the day the problem doesn't seem to occur.

As you suggest I'll check out the battery.

[clevelandtexas]

My MOBO monitor shows the battery voltage at 3.18 volts.

The other voltages for +12/-12, +3/-3 and 5 read well too.

Could I have a voltage problem with my AGP slot? When I get the startup problem there is no signal sent to the monitor because I get no boot display. When I reboot a hear a little sound in the monitor which is immediately followed by the boot display.

If I remove my AGP video card and use my old PCI video card for a couple of days do you think this will help my diagnosis?