3 year old system beginning to not start up

[Shiverwarp]

I bought a computer from NCIX a while back, you choose the parts they assemble it kind of thing.

I've had troubles recently with what I assume to be my video card. Sometimes the screen will fill up with red checkerboard and freeze. Sometimes I get a message that the graphics driver/device has been restarted successfully. Usually though, it just restarts or dies.

Just the other day however, my computer wouldn't even get to a bios screen when trying to boot. All the fans would start, the hard drive would spin, but no bios beeps or anything. I thought for sure my video card had simply died, I had been expecting and almost looking forward to it because I could get a new one. So I went and got myself a 6950. Plugged it all in and... still wouldn't boot!

I was desperate for anything, not wanting to replace anything else without doing EVERYTHING I could. I had already checked connections on everything in the box, made sure it wasn't my sound card messing things up, all that jazz. So I just went in there and blew out all the dust from the motherboard that I could with some canned air... and it started again.

Was this just a freak accident? Can a badly placed piece of dust just short the motherboard?

 

[Shiverwarp]

Well my PSU is a corsair 650W.

I've got a q9550 cpu, and 4 gb patriot ram. Gigabyte mobo. Anything else in particular?

I don't have access to another PSU atm, but I could borrow a friends in case the same happens again.

 

[kjdesigns]

Same thing happened to me once with my Intel 945 motherboard about 3 years back (motherboard was 2 years old then). It simply would not turn up, hard drives and cabinet fans would start but nothing after that.

I changed the motherboard and problem was solved.

 

[Prescott_666]

Do you have a digital multimeter? Can you check your voltage levels?

 

[Shiverwarp]

It hasn't happened again since I blew out the case, so I guess it was just some dust in the wrong place

 

[cpatel1987]

It hasn't happened again since I blew out the case, so I guess it was just some dust in the wrong place

Could be. Dust really is nothing more than dead animal skin cells. Such cells are an insulator, thus can short circuit components. Also the reason why most people are "allergic" to dust in the first place: its foreign animal skin cells being breathed in. Yummy!

Bored and want to read why you should clean your case out often? http://www.articlealley.com/article_852485_10.html. A toilet can be cleaner than the inside of your computer if your not somebody who cleans it out. Ewww ;-)