[ale] Urgent, hardware problem

[Al Lee]

Tri:
Sounds like the power supply is overheating for some reason. One common one is dust/dirt
on the cooling fins on one or more of the heat sinks. With all the power off/unplugged,
take a paint brush and clean them.
(clean / check the fan blades etc. too)

If that fails, with the system running, take a plastic stick of some sort and gently push
on various areas of the board(s). You may have a bad solder joint that is sensitive to
heat and or vibration.

AL Lee


Tri wrote:
> 
> I have an atx motherboard and an atx powersupply. In the last week my
> computer has been randomly shutting itself off, and I have trouble
> getting it to turn back on. On my system I have two power switches. One
> of them is connected to the power supply and one of them is connected to
> the motherboard. When it shuts off the computer doesn't report any
> errors or any sign that anything is wrong. When it shuts off I wait a
> minute and press the power button connected to the motherboard, and
> nothing happens. So I switch off the power button on the power supply
> and switch it back on. When I do this I see the power light flash on for
> a second and turn off. I repeat switching it off and switching back on
> for a couple of times and then it finally turns on. The bios reports no
> errors, the harddrive is ok, memory is ok, basicaly it says everything
> is ok, except linux complains that the partition wasn't cleanly
> unmounted, which is expected. This went on for a week or so and started
> happening more frequently. Now I can't get it to turn back on. The light
> still flashes for a second, but it still does nothing. I've checked all
> the wire connections inside the computer and everything checked out ok.
> I don't think this is software related since it happens in windows too.
> I don't think it's the motherboard's problem since the bios says
> everythings ok and when it turns on it behaves as if everythings ok.
> I've eliminated every possibility except the power supply, but I'm not
> sure. Do you have any ideas on what is wrong? I was tempted to open the
> power supply box but a warning sticker on it told me not to. I really
> need to get my computer back up.
> Any Ideas?
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> Tri
> 
> PS. I will make a summary of the ISP postings but as you can see my
> computer is down. I switched to atlnet, and I have found out that it is
> much better. I am typing this on my old Packard Bell computer.(Can't
> believe that it still works)

Tri wrote:
> 
> I have an atx motherboard and an atx powersupply. In the last week my
> computer has been randomly shutting itself off, and I have trouble
> getting it to turn back on. On my system I have two power switches. One
> of them is connected to the power supply and one of them is connected to
> the motherboard. When it shuts off the computer doesn't report any
> errors or any sign that anything is wrong. When it shuts off I wait a
> minute and press the power button connected to the motherboard, and
> nothing happens. So I switch off the power button on the power supply
> and switch it back on. When I do this I see the power light flash on for
> a second and turn off. I repeat switching it off and switching back on
> for a couple of times and then it finally turns on. The bios reports no
> errors, the harddrive is ok, memory is ok, basicaly it says everything
> is ok, except linux complains that the partition wasn't cleanly
> unmounted, which is expected. This went on for a week or so and started
> happening more frequently. Now I can't get it to turn back on. The light
> still flashes for a second, but it still does nothing. I've checked all
> the wire connections inside the computer and everything checked out ok.
> I don't think this is software related since it happens in windows too.
> I don't think it's the motherboard's problem since the bios says
> everythings ok and when it turns on it behaves as if everythings ok.
> I've eliminated every possibility except the power supply, but I'm not
> sure. Do you have any ideas on what is wrong? I was tempted to open the
> power supply box but a warning sticker on it told me not to. I really
> need to get my computer back up.
> Any Ideas?
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> Tri
> 
> PS. I will make a summary of the ISP postings but as you can see my
> computer is down. I switched to atlnet, and I have found out that it is
> much better. I am typing this on my old Packard Bell computer.(Can't
> believe that it still works)