My computer is phucked

[Ronin]

I'm looking at spending around $200 for my next PSU, it needs to be at least 600W and have at least 25A on the 12V rail as I'm looking at going SLI soon. Phuck knows how I'm going to fit another video card in my case, I might just have to hang the HDs outside of the case to make room.

How old is the replacement board? Check the top of the capacitors, if the are bulging up or leaking then it's screwed.

[SMOKEU]

How old is the replacement board? Check the top of the capacitors, if the are bulging up or leaking then it's screwed.

I don't know how old it is, I bought it as a 'refurbished' board from a computer shop. The board itself 'looks' to be in a very good condition, the capacitors aren't leaking or bulging up.

[glegge]

Overheating, Memory (memtest as already suggested), or power then if the board looks OK.
does it always turn straight back on again? or does it beep and carry on?

[Ronin]

I don't know how old it is, I bought it as a 'refurbished' board from a computer shop. The board itself 'looks' to be in a very good condition, the capacitors aren't leaking or bulging up.

Ahhhh, for refurbished read "I think this works"

[steve_t]

Mobo sounds poked

[SMOKEU]

Overheating, Memory (memtest as already suggested), or power then if the board looks OK.
does it always turn straight back on again? or does it beep and carry on?

I don't think anything is overheating, as the CPU and MB chipset temps are quite low. After it turns off I have to manually turn it back on.

[Gremlin]

with memory / mobo incompatibility or problems, it will usually restart. That said, psu could do that too. Besides hdd and memory testing, psu replacement is easy. I have seen OS's cause restart, but if both your os's are causing restarts, then yeah, hardware.

[jonbuoy]

Is the power supply getting hot? Does sound like a power supply issue as it shuts down and doesn´t automatically re-boot. Can you lessen the load on it by pulling off optical or extra hard drives or running onboard graphics and sounds instead of a video card?

[SMOKEU]

Is the power supply getting hot? Does sound like a power supply issue as it shuts down and doesn´t automatically re-boot. Can you lessen the load on it by pulling off optical or extra hard drives or running onboard graphics and sounds instead of a video card?

The PSU doesn't feel hot to touch, the mighty 9800GT is a fair drain on the PSU, and I don't have onboard graphics. I'll have to try and find someone with a spare PSU that I can borrow. One with a PCI-E power outlet and SATA plugs. I may even open up the PSU and clean it out if I really have to.

[SMOKEU]

After the computer randomly turned off before, I felt all the heatsinks inside it after about 2 hours of constant running, and the MB chipset (passive) heatsink felt very hot to touch, almost hot enough to burn my skin so I'll bolt/glue on an old Pentium 133 fan that I have lying around. I also got the following message upon starting up the computer, just as the BIOS was loading:

WARNING: System boot fail
Your system last boot fail or POST interrupted.
Please enter setup to load default and boot again.


WTF is going on here?

[rustic101]

My computer keeps turning itself off at random. It happens in both Windows XP and Linux, which leads me to think it's a hardware issue rather than a software issue. It's only being doing this in the past week, about 3 days after I installed a different motherboard. It turns off as if the power cord is being ripped out, sometimes it will run for a couple of hours before turning off, other times it will only run for about 30 seconds.

The problem seems worse when the computer has been running for a while, although even after running for an hour the CPU, MB chipset and video card temperatures are well within the acceptable ranges.

Just had the same thing with mine. I ripped it to bits and believe it or not it was the fan unit. When pulled to bits I shoved the vacuum over it and it runs sweet as a nut now. The blades were absolutely coated with a really fine dust and the intake coated with dog hair.

[scracha]

Considering how cheap new motherboards are these days ($100) and the amount of mucking about you've had, I can't understand why anyone would fuck about with refurbished ones.

Vacuum cleaning a PC is NOT a good idea. I've learn't this the hard way after thinking I knew better.
CPU overheating...just change the fan/heatsink as they're so cheap. Aftermarket ones are normally miles quieter too.
Cheapo trademe PSU's have given me lots of hassle. Buy a decent brand and get one with a big fuckoff fan on the bottom as they draw hot air out of the PC very well.
Case fans...thermaltake ISGC are cheap and almost silent.
Sticking lots of cheap fans inside a PC just makes it noisy, draws more power and doesn't necessary cool things down. Think about the overall air-flow.

You get what you pay for.

[jeffs]

If you upgraded with out taking proper anti-static precautions anything could be effected.

If you suspect the PSU is not able provide enough power and this may be shutting down with an overload issue, then start by removing the graphics card and running it off the motherboard video. If the PSU is marginal ( because it will run for sometime before dieing ) then the reduced load may help you work out what is going on. You can do the same with the second HD, just try reducing the draw on the PSU.

Then you replaced the MB, you will have had all the h/w out of the machine so any component is fair game, so system minimization is the next step.
Pull all your PCI cards, Try it.
Pull dimm's and try one at a time.
But the most likely issue is MB or CPU ( if you did use anti-static precautions ). And you have no idea on the MB history = the most likely issue.

Generally incompatible components would show up much earlier in the boot process. As for OS, You said the problem happens with both Linux and XP, so no it is not OS.

[breakaway]

Check the event log.

[SMOKEU]

Considering how cheap new motherboards are these days ($100) and the amount of mucking about you've had, I can't understand why anyone would fuck about with refurbished ones.

It wasn't easy to find a new AM2 board that supports SLI. The ones I did find were of the Gigabyte brand, which are the shittest MBs I have ever come across. I have had at least 5 Gigabyte boards fuck out on me, so I bought an Asus.