Continual Rebooting and Surging/Cycling Without Reaching BIOS Screen On PC Start Up

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Yoban

281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#157156 21-Nov-2014 12:55

Hi there,

Been having some issues with rebooting my desktop PC after it has been running for 3-4 days in row.

Would shut the machine done in the evening and start up the next morning to be greeted with continual rebooting and fans (GPU I think) spinning 100%. The behaviour is after I press power button:

fans spin hard - "blurred" beep sounds, bit of disk activity - no power and stop/silence - repeat.

To break this cycle, I have had to leave the PC switch off at the back fro 2-3 days upon which it will start up.

Specs are (bought 2008): GA-P35-DS3P with Intel Q6660 CPU, Geforce 8800GTS, 8Gb RAM, Oem 430W PSU from case Mfg, WD 500Gb and 2Tb Green disks, Win7 Ultimate.

Have played with reseating RAM, etc with little success. I have read that 400W was a minimum for PSU size with this GPU, adding extra disk - could this be it, more power? Or is it a heat issue as case is not well vented.

Any ideas team on what could be the issue as it it driving up the wall?

gbwelly

951 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1180720 21-Nov-2014 13:09

If when it happens it wont turn on for 2-3 days then troubleshooting should be simplified. Start with disconnecting drives one at a time, then remove half your RAM if you have multiple sticks, then swap back in the other half of the memory. If you have integrated graphics pull the graphics card next.

The green hard disk sticks out to me as I've seen similar before with them. I would start with that.

Otherwise it's grim and it's CPU or motherboard.

ckc

321 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1180732 21-Nov-2014 13:47

If the behaviour started when you added the WD drive then it's most likely to be the WD drive. If the behaviour started after that, and it ran fine with the WD for a while, it's not likely to be that. WD spec sheet for the green says it should consume at most 6W of power under rw.

It it doesn't POST then PSU or motherboard should be the first call. Repeated powerups and shutdowns can be put down to the motherboard not getting enough power or overcharged capacitors shutting the PSU down as a safety precaution. Leaving it off for 2 or 3 days allows residual power to drain out of the capacitors and then it'll start fine. It takes a while because there is still a charge running through the PC while it's plugged in. If you remove all power sources, it drains faster.

Is the PC unplugged and the PSU turned off at the back switch? If so, the time to drain capacitors should be much shorter - a couple of minutes. There is a trick that may or may not work that some people claim drains the capacitors faster, which is holding the main power button for the PC down while the PSU switch is OFF.

Start with the PSU, see if unplugging it from the mains drains it faster and helps reboot quicker. See if holding down the power button for 30s while it's plugged in has an effect.

Yoban

281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1180775 21-Nov-2014 14:16

ckc: If the behaviour started when you added the WD drive then it's most likely to be the WD drive. If the behaviour started after that, and it ran fine with the WD for a while, it's not likely to be that. WD spec sheet for the green says it should consume at most 6W of power under rw.

The issue was starting before the 2Tb went in. Been happening for 6 or so months and have been getting around it by not turning off PC. Reassurinf the 430W of PSU is just right, albeit close.

ckc: It it doesn't POST then PSU or motherboard should be the first call. Repeated powerups and shutdowns can be put down to the motherboard not getting enough power or overcharged capacitors shutting the PSU down as a safety precaution. Leaving it off for 2 or 3 days allows residual power to drain out of the capacitors and then it'll start fine. It takes a while because there is still a charge running through the PC while it's plugged in. If you remove all power sources, it drains faster.

I had heat is possible based on the time to "cool" down. PSU is Oem from Inwin chassis Mfg - have been looking at 550w as a solution. Will see if I can get my hands on a spare to test with.

ckc: Is the PC unplugged and the PSU turned off at the back switch? If so, the time to drain capacitors should be much shorter - a couple of minutes. There is a trick that may or may not work that some people claim drains the capacitors faster, which is holding the main power button for the PC down while the PSU switch is OFF.

Start with the PSU, see if unplugging it from the mains drains it faster and helps reboot quicker. See if holding down the power button for 30s while it's plugged in has an effect.

Thanks for that. will help in getting up and runnign again quicker until I sort it out.

Yoban

281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1180779 21-Nov-2014 14:19

Thanks @gbwelly.

Have done the RAM thing awhile back, but with little success from memory. Will do so again with a bit more science.

Do not have onboard graphics, have unplgged power to GPU and it beeped continuous while issue existed.

Hmm...CPU/mobo was hoping not these.

ckc

321 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1180791 21-Nov-2014 14:30

It's not likely to be heat. Heat dissipates very quickly, comparatively. Computers that shut down due to overheating can be back up and running after a few minutes off. Overheating processors tend to shut you down, rather than prevent you from starting up. So the issue would probably be more likely to present itself when you left it on, as opposed to turning it off.

Yoban

281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1180906 21-Nov-2014 16:33

ckc: It's not likely to be heat. Heat dissipates very quickly, comparatively. Computers that shut down due to overheating can be back up and running after a few minutes off. Overheating processors tend to shut you down, rather than prevent you from starting up. So the issue would probably be more likely to present itself when you left it on, as opposed to turning it off.

Ah yes, very valid point. Time to find a spare PSU to test with. PBTech has zalman 500w on sale next week...timing eh.

giollarnat

134 posts

Master Geek

#1189063 5-Dec-2014 01:55

Interesting. I have a very similar issue with another PC from 2008. (programmed obsolescence eh)

For my one, it would start properly about one out of ten times, otherwise, there would be a long pause after the initial power up noise (that microsecond jolt when you press the power button) and generally there would be no video output at all but all fans and Leds would work on mobo and graph card, HDD would spin up etc (but it windows wasn't starting up in the background e.g. networking didn't work).

Now even the one in 10 times doesn't work. I tried unplugging the non-essentials and no joy.

So I've tried another power supply (zalman from pbtech sale coincidentally lol), same old problem, now i suppose i'll try swapping the ram around as suggested above to eliminate that, unfortunately no onboard graphics on the mobo to test against, can always try re-seating the graphics card...

but how can one be sure it's the mobo or CPU? (unfortunately my model of mobo has never beeped at all) Got any tips?

Cheers

TLD

721 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1189188 5-Dec-2014 10:35

I would have gone with a failing HDD, except it sounds like the reboot cycle is happening fairly quickly. IME the OS can spend quite a time trying to resolve drive problems on boot. I've even had a stuck in Windows Startup Repair continuous cycle fix after disconnecting a drive.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

giollarnat

134 posts

Master Geek

#1189981 6-Dec-2014 21:38

Very curious. Would not POST until i reseated the ram - played with both until it was clear both sticks were functional but one of the four slots was not.
But then it would get to "initializing" for an adapter after the post and still get stuck.

Unhooked everything and rehooked up one by one - the dvd drive was some kind of culprit here. Unplugged it and everything worked for one restart.
Plugged everything back in including 2nd HDD and then everything failed again.
Repeated the unhooking rehooking process above and it worked again. Repeatedly.

My guess is that my mobo is slowly dying. But things seem to work at present so i'll take that in the meantime. Puzzling.

Azzura

454 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1189983 6-Dec-2014 21:59

Could be power supply or the motherboard is die'n.

Sideface

6270 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1189984 6-Dec-2014 21:59

Whatever you do, don't spend any money repairing this dying PC, which is past its use-by date.
Save your data while you still can.

Sideface

MadEngineer

2207 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1189998 6-Dec-2014 23:33

Check the capacitors on the motherboard ensuring that none have expanded tops - they should all be flat. Especially around the pci slots but also around the CPU and around the PSU ATX connector.

I've seen this exact fault dozens of times on motherboards right on the date of warranty expiration and for this reason never buy/sell Acer anymore due to the sheer quantity of them with this fault.

I bet you can get the machine temporarily running again by pulling out the power lead, pressing the power button a few times then it starts up OK after you put the power back in.

giollarnat

134 posts

Master Geek

#1195241 10-Dec-2014 21:32

Yes... I had looked a while ago but can't really see anything suspicious (I had a modem dying once with inflated capacitors and it was pretty obvious then)

It also now has a new PSU, not that that seems to have been the problem, but good for peace of mind now that its running (and bearing in mind that the old one was 6-7 years old).

[the funniest thing is that despite the whole thing being 6 years old it can still run the latest games. Pretty sure that wasn't the case earlier in the decade- 6-7 years meant software obsolescence. Have we reached "peak technology"? lol]