Hey guys, I was hoping to get a bit of a second opinion on this problem I've been having.
About a month ago, I cracked my case to clean out some dust and whatnot. After moving a few wires around and doing some general housekeeping, I tried setting everything back up. On hitting the power button, the computer went into what sounded like an infinite restart cycle (I could tell because one of my CD drives' motors moves around a bit on startup). Black screen, all case lights and fans running, but the system seemed to be restarting every 5 or 6 seconds. I opened everything up to make sure there were no obvious problems, but I couldn't seen anything wrong.
Fast forward a bit, and through a bit of fiddling around I found that the computer worked *perfectly* when it was laying on its side, and propping it upright would be met with the same problem (it should be noted that if the computer was started and running from the sideways position and then brought upright, there were no noticeable problems. However if the system was restarted the previous problem would continue).
"Great," I thought. Something is just shorting out against the mobo or something. But for the life of me, I can't tell what the cause was.
Fast forward again. I discovered that the computer works perfectly fine if the GPU isn't plugged in, and the onboard graphics are at work. This lent credence to the idea that when the case was on its side, it was allowing the GPU to sit nicely, as opposed to when it was standing up. The thing is, I can sometimes coax the computer to work even when it's upright (though it takes a while and will usually just sort of break out of its restart cycle on its own). The problem then, is that screen flickering and weird color problems begin to take hold.
I guess my question is this: what could possibly have happened to the GPU to cause this problem? Is it even the GPU at all? When the computer was running (either upright or on its side) I was able to play Crysis just to get a benchmark. Everything seemed fine in operation, but startup is almost impossible. I cracked open the PSU as well to make sure that there were no burnt capacitors and that it wasn't a power problem. Any opinion could help me in solving this unusual problem.
My computer:
AMD Phenom II x4
Radeon HD 5830
ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO
About a month ago, I cracked my case to clean out some dust and whatnot. After moving a few wires around and doing some general housekeeping, I tried setting everything back up. On hitting the power button, the computer went into what sounded like an infinite restart cycle (I could tell because one of my CD drives' motors moves around a bit on startup). Black screen, all case lights and fans running, but the system seemed to be restarting every 5 or 6 seconds. I opened everything up to make sure there were no obvious problems, but I couldn't seen anything wrong.
Fast forward a bit, and through a bit of fiddling around I found that the computer worked *perfectly* when it was laying on its side, and propping it upright would be met with the same problem (it should be noted that if the computer was started and running from the sideways position and then brought upright, there were no noticeable problems. However if the system was restarted the previous problem would continue).
"Great," I thought. Something is just shorting out against the mobo or something. But for the life of me, I can't tell what the cause was.
Fast forward again. I discovered that the computer works perfectly fine if the GPU isn't plugged in, and the onboard graphics are at work. This lent credence to the idea that when the case was on its side, it was allowing the GPU to sit nicely, as opposed to when it was standing up. The thing is, I can sometimes coax the computer to work even when it's upright (though it takes a while and will usually just sort of break out of its restart cycle on its own). The problem then, is that screen flickering and weird color problems begin to take hold.
I guess my question is this: what could possibly have happened to the GPU to cause this problem? Is it even the GPU at all? When the computer was running (either upright or on its side) I was able to play Crysis just to get a benchmark. Everything seemed fine in operation, but startup is almost impossible. I cracked open the PSU as well to make sure that there were no burnt capacitors and that it wasn't a power problem. Any opinion could help me in solving this unusual problem.
My computer:
AMD Phenom II x4
Radeon HD 5830
ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO
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