Unusual Crashing/Lockup

[TheRagingGerbil]

This last week my pc started acting up. I would be going along, sometimes either in game, email, whatever, and my pc will simply reboot. Sometime it won't do this at all, and sometimes it will just get past the bios check. Sometimes, the pc won't even post at all.

I have a glass case so I can see my fans. When it doesn't post I can see my processor cooling fans trying to spin up, but they wont. They just sit there and wiggle. I also notice my harddrive trying to spin up, but won't.

Now a couple of months ago I had to replace my mobo because the AGP port went out or I lost the system bus. Everything seemed to be working fine after I installed the new mobo. All jumpers, voltages, etc are set correctly. Nothing is OC'ed.

I have had a couple of people tell me it could either be my video card or my power supply. I was going to pick both up after work and try one before I installed the second.

My question is has anyone seen this and what ended up being the problem. I'm running a LeadTek NF2 mobo with and AMD XP2600 and 1gig of 3200. My video card is an Albatross Nvida TI4600/128.

[Rbstr]

that sound like not enough power to me, its not your video card, i dont see how they even got that assumption. You may have a burnt out proccesor fan, because if your proccesor overheats it will auto shut down to prevent Meltdown(though that can happen still) and your HD would not boot either, try you fan first sence its cheaper, if that doesn't work try a new power supply if that doesn't work your mbo may have shorted some how.

[TheRagingGerbil]

I've got temp probes on everything. The processor never gets above 48 degrees C. My internal case temperature is about 30 degrees C.

[Rbstr]

man i saw 48 and i'm like woah but then realized i have a celeron. Well i think it may be a PSU problem, if you mobo does voltage monitoring i would see what its doing

[Daleon]

Hmm, i'd prolly point the finger at the PS. B/c if its not, your going to have a much harder time finding the problem. Could be MB or Processor. I would also re-seat your HSF, for various reasons I've seen this have postive effects on similar issues. Video should not be a problem, as the cpu and hd should boot without it.

[TheRagingGerbil]

Thanks for your help fellas, turns out it was the power supply.

When I unplugged the connector from the motherboard, the main power lead was charred, blackened, and completely burnt off. I had to use my picks to dig the crap out of the motherboard socket. The old power supply was a 2 fan, 400 W so I picked up a three fan, 500w, Allied. Computer is working like a champ now. I was really afraid that I damaged the mobo, but it worked flawlessly all weekend.

[Daleon]

Wow, it fried to the mb and it still works? Thats nice.

[NoSurrender]

Lmao thats insane. I woulda taken pictures just to show off.

[Ait'al]

You sure you havent had your power supply's voltage to high for a while and finally burnt a bunch of little things on your board?

Edit: Scratch this post. didnt read far enought ahead!

[TheRagingGerbil]

Here's a pic of my plug.

http://home.comcast.net/~theraginggerbil/images/psplug.jpg

*EDIT: Also, my case is now running at a cool 27 decrees C.