computer woes

[ratcreature]

So my desktop computer, which is fairly new but not under its six month warranty anymore, has a problem. Sometimes it won't boot when I turn it on. It doesn't even show the BIOS screen nor the graphics card notice. The on/off switch diode lights up, and the case fan works, however I don't see the hard disk diode blinking.

So when it happened the first time out of the blue (there weren't any signs of incipient failure the last time I had turned it on) I thought the worst, tried the turning it off and on again once to no effect, and then pulled out my computer, intending to check all cables, then open it, see whether the processor fan starts, and whether maybe just some connection is loose or too much dust had accumulated or anything. So I pull it out, wriggle all the outside cables, try once again, and miraculously it starts before I even open it. And the computer worked fine, no errors, no freezing, or anything.

So I thought that maybe it was nothing after all, clearly going with my hopes for a best case scenario, because I really don't want to spend money repairing or replacing it fully or in parts. Also seeing how it is still fairly new I didn't anticipate any such extra computer costs, I'm still recovering from buying it this spring, no matter that it was a relatively cheap one as far as computers go, but it was still a big expense for me. (I did however backup the data I hadn't already.)

But then today it fails to start again. So again I try a couple of times, futilely hoping that it might resolve itself on its own like before, then pull it out, open it, and all cable connections I can see seem fine, so I try starting it while open, and again it suddenly works, and now seems to run okay. It did give me BIOS notice that I had pressed the cold reset button too often in sequence, so clearly something registered even as the computer didn't seem to do anything.

Does anyone have any idea what produces behavior like this?

Comments

[jt93.livejournal.com]

i had a prob like this, and turned out to be a power supply issue. try disconnecting the cdroms, and extra hard disks and see what happens. if it will boot with less load, then that's your prob.

[ratcreature]

Hm, I only have one hard disk and one dvd in that computer, so I can't really disconnect anything like that. The power supply isn't especially generous relative to the mainboard, from what I gathered from the mainboard handbook that listed what kind of parts you should use with it, though the store where I bought it assembled the combination like that, but then again I don't have any additional cards in it, i.e. I use the graphics and sound on the mainboard rather than any extra cards, and have no extra hard disks or other devices. But thanks for info that something like this happened to you.