odd problem, at a loss

[steven]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

elite mircro k7ama mb
512m sdram
60g maxtor hd
tdk cdrw
creative 52x cdrom
ati 128 all-in-wonder pro


Recently I had problems with my system doing cold boot at random times,
usually over an hour from start up. Well after installing windows several
times I determined it was hardware. from reading this newsgroups and a few
web forum I went out a bought an Antec truepower 430w psu. Fortunately my
system ran like a champ for over a week.

At around 5:30 I went to dinner and arrived home to fine the pchung. Te
monitor would not come out of sleep mode nor could I do anything else. upon
resetting the system it seeed fine.

Last night when I powered up the fans and drives spun up but no post or
beeps. again, hitting reset returned the system to normal.

When the system boots everything works perfectly. This has happened
twiceand am at a loss what to look for next or what to suspect

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Steven wrote:
>
> elite mircro k7ama mb
> 512m sdram
> 60g maxtor hd
> tdk cdrw
> creative 52x cdrom
> ati 128 all-in-wonder pro
>
> Recently I had problems with my system doing cold boot at random times,
> usually over an hour from start up. Well after installing windows several
> times I determined it was hardware. from reading this newsgroups and a few
> web forum I went out a bought an Antec truepower 430w psu. Fortunately my
> system ran like a champ for over a week.
>
> At around 5:30 I went to dinner and arrived home to fine the pchung. Te
> monitor would not come out of sleep mode nor could I do anything else. upon
> resetting the system it seeed fine.
>
> Last night when I powered up the fans and drives spun up but no post or
> beeps. again, hitting reset returned the system to normal.
>
> When the system boots everything works perfectly. This has happened
> twiceand am at a loss what to look for next or what to suspect
>
> Any advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA


Hi,

At least a couple of possibilities:

- CPU temperature
- memory problem

Try booting into the BIOS, and see if the BIOS has a 'hardware monitor'
where it shows CPU and system temperature (usually under 'power' area).
If it does, let the machine sit in the BIOS and watch the CPU
temperature, and see how high it goes. If it's high (what 'high' is
will depend but should be less than 60C, I think), then you need to look
at you fan/heatsink/thermal paste.

If temp looks ok, download a standalone memory tester, memtest (do a
google search) or DocMemory (http://www.simmtester.com) and make a
bootable floppy and test and see if it finds any problems.

Jim