bikerdude on 5/6/2015 at 08:34
So the PSU you have put in that machine is over a year old..? if so have you got a PSU tester..?
faetal on 5/6/2015 at 12:10
The PSU was purchased around March 2011 and is an OCZ GameXStream 850W PSU, so nothing shabby.
I've not got a PSU tester, other than my old machine which worked without a hiccup for 4 years.
bikerdude on 5/6/2015 at 14:27
Quote Posted by faetal
The PSU was purchased around March 2011
Its a 4yr old PSU, which if used regularly and loaded to 50% or more will be showing signs of wear. The only way to be sure is to borrow/buy another PSU, if the PC fires up then the OCZ is a bin job.
faetal on 5/6/2015 at 15:23
I live in France and don't really know many people so borrowing a PSU is no go. I have a new one on order anyway, so I've little to lose by chucking the OCZ back in the old machine and testing it with my old SATA drive with Windows still on it. I don't see any reason why transferring it to a new machine might stop it working. The only thing I can think of is that it somehow works less well, but my old machine isn't taxing it enough to show, but I'd have thought with a problem like that, it would at least reach POST before clunking out. Not this 3 second on and off again loop. PSU won't arrive for at least a week, so I'll update when I now more. I have ordered some isopropanol too just in case I need to start cleaning thermal paste off of anything :/
faetal on 9/6/2015 at 19:45
Update: new PSU is in and the exact same thing happens. On the plus side, this means that my old PSU can go in the old machine making it just one HDD away from being a whole machine, which ought to greatly up its sellability. On the down side, my new machine is a pretty piece of junk until I figure this out.
Based on what I've been reading - the two things to check now are shorts on the motherboard or excess thermal grease making contact with the processor slot. I'll take everything out of the case and run it bare bones to try to narrow it down. If there's a short on the board and I can't find it, this probably means I can RMA the board for a new one, or absolute worst case scenario, buy a new motherboard, which isn't the cheapest or most expensive bit, so I can live with it. If it's excess thermal grease, then that's nothing a bit of isopropanol and some cotton buds can't fix (I think).
Anyway, riding the anticlimax wave here, but will keep updating as and when I get a chance to progress.
Al_B on 9/6/2015 at 20:23
This is going to sound stupid but I had a similar issue when I upgraded my motherboard last. It would start going through the startup sequence and then reset a few seconds in. I was initially fooled by the error code on the motherboard LEDs pointing to a RAM issue but turned out that I'd just made a mistake with the power or reset switch connection and it was thinking that the button was pushed in at some point during startup.
Obvious in hindsight and you may have checked but it may be worth at least disconnecting all case connectors (except the power switch) and trying again.
faetal on 10/6/2015 at 05:17
Worth a shot!
I'll give that a go tonight.
heywood on 10/6/2015 at 12:43
Got any other RAM to try? I had this problem once and changing memory fixed it.
faetal on 10/6/2015 at 13:20
I could try the memory from the other machine.
faetal on 14/6/2015 at 11:55
Ok, have tried taking the whole thing apart, removed the heat sink, wiped away excess grease and applied a thin line like the Artic paste website suggests. Checked there were no shorts on the motherboard, unplugged literally everything except motherboard, CPU and RAM - even separated case front panel pins and started it by shorting the power button pins and the exact same thing happens. I'm now genuinely concerned as I have no clue what the problem could be.
Fuck.
[EDIT] I've ruled out the case screws. Basically had the motherboard just with CPU, cooler and RAM attached out of the case and it's still doing the same thing. Tried either RAM sticks and same problem. Not having a motherboard speaker is a pain for diagnostics, so I've bought one which should be here early next week. I've also bought a new (
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B0068OI7T8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00) cooler as I've read that sometimes if the cooler fan isn't recognised by the motherboard, this can cause the issue. I've tried resetting CMOS by removing the battery for 30m and no change. Basically, it has to be related to either the RAM, motherboard, CPU or cooler.
