pc turns off before POST

[vti_786]

got a wierd issue here,

when the power button is pressed, the fans and everything powers up, then after about 6 - 7 seconds it powers off and starts like normal (posts after a second or 2).

when i say it powers off and starts like normal, what happens is that all the fans stops working for a second and then its as though the power button has been pressed.

the pc works fine for about an hour and then crashes, but i think this is because my hard drive is slightly faulty.

could this be becuase i have turned the SMART feature of the hard drive off? (like i said above the hard drive is faulty and and gives a smart error message at post.

or could it be the simple fact of the hard drive being faulty?

[Zak33]

is it a Gigabyte mobo?

[vti_786]

is it a Gigabyte mobo?

no, its an abit, i think av8 or something, its my brothers pc, so not 100%

do you think its the mobo?

[vti_786]

anyone any ideas?

[Phage]

Odd one...
I'd lean towards the Mainboard as well.
Have you run memtest ?

[vti_786]

i haven't done much testing really, as the pc still works, well it does crash after an hour or so though.

its really annoying as i always try to find ways to have the system boot faster and then this just kills it.

Odd one...
I'd lean towards the Mainboard as well.
Have you run memtest ?

[d3fiant]

I've had similar and because of two reasons, the first is bad contact between the CPU and HSF and the shutdown was a thermal warning, the second was a PSU issue, a cheap noname OEM that ended up in the bin. Since I've always used abit mobos I've found that they sometimes get themselves in a twist, cmos reset and/or formware upgrade is advised although now support is non existant apart from some great peeps on here

[Phage]

i always try to find ways to have the system boot faster and then this just kills it.

What did you do ? Could this cause your instability ?

[mac124]

Asus boards used to that when overclocked, it was "one of them things" ??

[vti_786]

i have not overclocked it in anyway, it was a new build with second hand parts, when i say i try to get the best possible boot, i mean, stopping all the start programs, buying fast hardware etc, but this is obviously a hardware issue as i have not even tampered with any settings for overclocking and its been like this from start, i just didn't know where to start.

just also realised its an asus motherboard, sorry for the mix up

Motherboard: Asus A8R-MVP
cpu: athlon 4400 x2
RAM: 2gb ddr1
PSU: FSP, 500watt blue storm
HDD: 500GB WD 16mb (shows SMART fault at startup, reallocated sectors or something)

What did you do ? Could this cause your instability ?

Asus boards used to that when overclocked, it was "one of them things" ??

[Phage]

Heat ? What temps are you getting ?
Could be the HDD, Can you remove and boot from a DVD and see if it repeats.

[vti_786]

it does it on a cold boot as well as normal booting, so i doubt its the temps, the cpu is around 40c.

i will have to try booting from the cd tomorrow (like iv said its my brothers pc)

but just to make it clear, when you say boot from CD, could that be the windows cd yes?

and do i have to take hdd out or just have that as my secondary boot item?

Heat ? What temps are you getting ?
Could be the HDD, Can you remove and boot from a DVD and see if it repeats.

[Phage]

Yes the Windows DVD. It should boot from that, provided your boot order has the optical up first.
I'd remove the HDD completely, to ensure that any instability can be ruled out., or possibly swap it with a random good HDD

[Valvo]

Try checking if any of the PSU cables are loose on components such as the GPU or MOBO. If not then check if the start switch cable is also in its slot properly.

[vti_786]

im pretty sure all the psu cables are correct and in securely.

but i always get confused with the awkward power, reset cables, can never tell if they are correct place, do they have a positive and negative aswell? if so how do you tell?

Try checking if any of the PSU cables are loose on components such as the GPU or MOBO. If not then check if the start switch cable is also in its slot properly.

[Valvo]

No, there is no positive and negative end.. it should all be good... I had a similar problem.. i had 2 PSU slots on my GPU only put PSU wire in and it would start for 5 secs then stop. Im not sure about any other solutions apart from reconnecting the wires securely. Anyway.. Good luck hope i helped.