Raem
05-06-2005, 04:02
My computer is FUBAR. A few months ago, right after I installed Knights of the Old Republic II, my computer developed the habit of running its fans loudly, then occasionally shutting itself down without warning, and refusing to power back up. I thought that this was caused by me playing KOTOR2 for hours on end, resulting in overheating my computer. I was sure that was the problem when I opened up my machine and used canned air to help cool it off, after which it would boot back up without a problem. This happened a few times over a couple months, and while I was a little alarmed, it wasn't a terribly big problem. It just cost me a few minutes to remove the case and a few cents worth of compressed air.
Recently it went down, and hard. It turned itself off without warning, only now, instead of failing to power on again at all for a little while, it would come back on. The fans would run, lights would blink. But the motherboard wouldn't POST. I wouldn't get the successful POST beep, and my computer wouldn't boot up into Windows. I was the proud owner of a $2000 paperweight with fans and blinking lights.
A couple of days ago I tried booting it up again, just for the hell of it, and glory be!, it worked. It worked beautifully. Still operating off the theory that I was overheating it, I shut it down for the night when I was done (Prior to this, my computer remained up 24-7 since I moved in around 6 months previously, save for software install reboots and such). Now it refuses to boot again.
I have ony the foggiest of clues what might be wrong, and they're just guesses. The computer is running with a power supply around a hundred watts shy of what I think it needs (295 instead of 400), but it came that way, and I haven't really installed a lot of high-power items. It's not a RAM failure: I tried each of my four sticks in a known-good machine, and it booted just fine. I doubt it's my BIOS, since the computer does occasionally boot.
So, short of replacing my power supply, I don't know. Has anyone seen anything like this? Anyone know what the problem is?
Recently it went down, and hard. It turned itself off without warning, only now, instead of failing to power on again at all for a little while, it would come back on. The fans would run, lights would blink. But the motherboard wouldn't POST. I wouldn't get the successful POST beep, and my computer wouldn't boot up into Windows. I was the proud owner of a $2000 paperweight with fans and blinking lights.
A couple of days ago I tried booting it up again, just for the hell of it, and glory be!, it worked. It worked beautifully. Still operating off the theory that I was overheating it, I shut it down for the night when I was done (Prior to this, my computer remained up 24-7 since I moved in around 6 months previously, save for software install reboots and such). Now it refuses to boot again.
I have ony the foggiest of clues what might be wrong, and they're just guesses. The computer is running with a power supply around a hundred watts shy of what I think it needs (295 instead of 400), but it came that way, and I haven't really installed a lot of high-power items. It's not a RAM failure: I tried each of my four sticks in a known-good machine, and it booted just fine. I doubt it's my BIOS, since the computer does occasionally boot.
So, short of replacing my power supply, I don't know. Has anyone seen anything like this? Anyone know what the problem is?