PC won't boot when the room is cold

[Guest]

Hey guys,

I recently got some problems with my computer if I try to boot in a 'fairly' cold room. It's like 15 degrees celcius when I try to boot, and I have to reboot like 4-5 times before it actually gets into windows. After the computer is booted it runs like a charm, no lock-ups or anything, and I can reboot as much as I want without any problems. The problem only occurs when I leave it off for a while (like when going to bed), and trying to boot in the morning. The funny thing is, since I know it has something to do with the temperature (since it boots like a normal PC in the summer), I tried a hair blower/dryer while aiming at certain components. I tried te PSU, HDD, Memory, but none of those actually made any difference, untill I pointed the hair dryer around my CPU. I have an EVGA 780i mobo, so the nforce chip is right below the CPU. It's pretty hard to aim directly an the CPU, since I got a thermalright extreme 120 cooler being huge on top of it. When I do this for +-20 seconds, and I try to boot my pc, it boots like it's summer. Do any of you guys have any idea what could cause this? I usually like the cold weather for OC-ing, but in this case it's starting to annoy me.

I'll list my specs below:

Q9450 cpu @ 3.5ghz (doesn't seem to make any difference with the cold boot when I run it on stock settings)
EVGA 780i mobo
OCZ 800mhz sli-ready memory
MSI GTX295OC
2x 1TB spinpoint f1
Thermaltake 750watt Tough Power PSU.

Any advice is welcome, since I'm kinda running out of ideas.

Thanks in advance

 

[dpaul8]

I doubt that it is your CPU, but as a last resort I would pull everything out and reseat the components.

But before doing that I would swap out the power supply because it very well could be a bad connection on the CPU 4 / 8 pin connector or a open circuit in one of the PSUs wires that occurs when the copper contracts due to cold temperatuers. Let us know what you find.

Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll try to see if I can score a PSU to test my system. If that doesn't give any results I'll try to reseat the components aswell and hope for the best. Hopefully I have some results soon!

 

[Petrofsky]

I agree with dpaul8 that very often temperature-related problems occur when a connection (at a cracked trace or a plug or whatever) makes and breaks from contraction and expansion. Another possibility that occurs to me is condensation, or what you might call "dew". It wouldn't take very much at all to do what you describe.

 

[thelivingflesh]

check your psu at that temp with a volt meter.....

 

[zeromahesh]

I'm also having the same issue. Every time I heat my power unit using a 100W bulb. Then I can switch on my computer. So I think problem should be with the power unit.

 

[santiodarc]

The problem could in fact be the adapter as well.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

sounds like a motherboard problem, dry joint on the board somewhere. Around the cpu is common as putting the cpu heatsink on requires a lot of pressure and can weaken the board. try a different heatsink on the cpu if you have one.