PC Stopped Working!

I've had a working PC that I built a couple of months ago and it's been running fine. Then, today I try to boot it up and it just sits at the BIOS screen. When I turn it on, it DOES beep once. I have absolutely NO idea why it's doing this. Although I did notice it acting up a bit yesterday (running kind of slow). Any ideas on what is going on and how I can get it working?

Thanks.

It's an Asus P5N32-E motherboard. E8800 Wolfdale CPU not OC'd. EVGA 8800 GTS 512 MB GPU. 4GB of DDR2 RAM. Windows Vista 64 bit OS.

I cannot even seem to enter the BIOS. The screen says press 'del' to enter the BIOS, but I do that and nothing happens. It seems unresponsive.

Memory or PSU.

Oh no. The problems aren't over. Now after a certain amount of time, it seems the USB ports are failing. It's happened twice. I have a USB keyboard, mouse and network connection, and I lose all three after about 5-10 minutes. WTF?

Edit: On second thought, it's not just USB, it seems like it's input devices in general (mouse, k/b, etc.) Do I need to replace my motherboard?

Its a 600W OCZ GameXStream PSU. I thought it was supposed to be a good PSU...

It's tier 2 according to that list.

Could be the mobo. I would not think CPU, b/c you say it's beeping once, which they should do b/c that is the sign of a successful POST. Have you tried different ports for your mouse/keyboard etc? Vista SP1, could be something to do with it, but not likely as you aren't even getting far enough for it to reach the OS. I'm gonna say call up Asus and see what they say.

No, I can get into the OS. This is really weird. Now it's working fine. In fact I'm typing this message from it now. I posted a message on Asus' support forum. I'll see what people there say, but for now it's working. I'll be sure to post if it stops working.

Gah, it did it again. The mouse and keyboard just freeze up and I have to reboot. Although it lasted longer this time.

Agreed. Looks like a power problem for the input devices.

Things that cause lockups

1) over clocked memory or CPUs. If you went into BIOS and started playing around with over-clocking that is most likely your problem. Return to factory default settings.

2) CPU fan not working or really dusty heat sink. CPU heats up and will not function until it cools down. Can lockup PC while running and then not reboot until it cools down.

3) Flakey RAM. Vendors have not done burn in testing on RAM for years.

If you have more than one stick of RAM,
- power down and remove all but one stick.
- Run the PC until if locks up again.
- If it does not lock up after a week or two. pitch the RAM that is not in the system and buy some more to replace it.
- if it does lock up, swap sticks of memeory and repeat.

If you only have one stick of RAM. Buy a new stick they are cheap and besides a system can always benifit from more RAM. Swap out your RAM for the new and run until it hangs up. If no hangup, pitch the old RAM.


4) It would be rare for both sticks of RAM to go bad. If lockups persist after above RAM tests swap out the power supply.

I have an Asus P5N-E SLI and my motherboard was unstable at stock speed with an E6850 cpu. I increased my fsb to 1450 and its been stable ever since. Try increasing your fsb and see if that helps. At least it did for me. Couldn't hurt to try.

That might very well explain your issues--cheaper RAM typically runs at higher voltage to ensure stability at certain speeds. You're likely using two brands of memory that run at different stock voltages. THis can lead to tremendous headaches.

Let us know how it goes.

Hesskia may have a point. Hard to say without knowing the RAM specs. I've also had issues when mixing dual channel memory.

The only reason I can see to justify this is that your memory automatically picked a ratio before, which may have put it at 1000mhz for example, and when you increased the FSB, it lowered the ratio to a safe level.

Asus boards are known to be very picky on memory vendors, they always provide a list of compatible memories in their user manual...

I would use a utility such as memtest to test the memory to make certain. I have a system that used to just randomly lock up. Turned out to be a memory problem, what had happened was the memory had a metal heatspreader which had actually caused heat to be trapped there and the stick had fried itself. Since replacing the memory, a lot lot better. Just because taking the ram out and putting it back in worked once does not mean it will work again. You need to run a test on it. The PSU seems to be a quality unit, so check your voltages next time your in the bios, or from within windows using a program such as speedfan. But I think your PSU will probably be ok, it's a known brand. I'm gonna say start at memory, if it's not the memory, I'd look at the PSU, if not that, probably the mobo as I don't think I've ever seen a cpu go bad.

Interesting...remember that HP RAM I said I replaced? Well I put 1 stick of that in and the system ran. Maybe my Corsair RAM did fry? I mean they all have heatspreaders and there were four sticks of them all packed in close.

EDIT: I've replaced the 1 stick of HP RAM with 2 sticks of Corsair and it booted properly, so I would assume the Corsair isn't fried. I'm going to go into the OS and see if it freezes like it did before (although before it didn't freeze with two sticks of RAM). I'll keep you updated.