This kind of thing only happens to me I guess

[Noite Escura]

My puter is acting strange. Since I replaced vid card some weeks ago(Voodoo Banshee by GF4 MX) it sometimes won't post. It powers up for 1-5 seconds then power down on its own. When it does that I have to switch off the PS, then power up again. I thought it could be the aditional power comsumption of the new vid card overcharging ther PS, then I unplugged the 8cm case fan and the CD drive. Same thing. Last year it did the same thing for a time. As I didn`t have time to mess with it I took it to a tech service. They said it was a "bad contact"(does it make sense for you?) between various parts and they hed to rebuild the whole system. They were evasive about what was bad mounted and didn't explain why it had worked for more than an year without problems. Only thing I noticed was the power button was probably changed as it made a different sound. Now it started again. I discovered something: if I press the power button several times and then switch the PS on it will load normally. So I'm stuck on this dilemma, is there some way to test the power button before buying another PS? Even if i buy it I will need some directions as I never plugged the wires on an ATX PS before(this one came with the case). So any hint?

 

[catocom]

It kinda sounds to me like either a bad HD cable, or connection,
or something grounding out.
(like something that has been close to gronding but didn't, until you moved something.)

 

[Noite Escura]

It has some logic. I thought of something like that, but I'm not sure of what can be 'grounding' . I checked all the cards for contacts with chassis, but I guess they contact one way or another not? The MoBo is not touching the chassis on any point I'm sure of that. All the wires look well revested. I'm not sure what to look for. I think I had another ATA cable and will try to replace it tonight. Thanks for the tips...

 

[catocom]

Will it boot from a floppy?

If all else fails you can try taking the mobo out of the case,
then plugging things in one at a time.

 

[Noite Escura]

Did that. Worked for 2 days then again *poof*. When it fails it doesn't keep up enough to boot for whatever means...

 

[Justintime]

How clean is your AC power? My room is terrible, i cannot pass prime 95 usually after a few hours, on computers that were 100% rock stable and worked p95 for days on end at full trottle in my old place. Other than that app i am 100% fully stable in every thing else.

 

[Noite Escura]

Justin, sorry, I didn't understand a fuck of what you said

 

[HomeLAN]

He's asking if the power from the wall is stable. Are there major fluctuations from the wall to the box?

 

[Noite Escura]

Oh, yes, the power is terrible here, like everything else. Always was. Although I've had other computers with no major problems. I have a "stabilizer"(rw?) aswell. I will check again for assemblig as soon as I have time...

 

[Inkara1]

Maybe the power from the wall also has something to do with why it's been happening the same time every year.

 

[Justintime]

I've got mine down pat, i think The system runs P95 like a champ from early morning (2-3ishAM ) to roughly 5:25PM., then all hell breaks loose, P95 fails no matter what time i started it at, so its most likely not the machine, could be some temporary brownouts dropping the voltage just so much to cause a 5v dip low enough to fail p95, don't matter to me much as it does not affect the stability of the machine at all for me.