Ugh, here we go again with computer problems. Everything has been going ok on the computer front over the last several weeks, so I suppose its high time for a computer problem to rear its ugly head again. I came downstairs Wednesday morning and tried to rouse my computer from its slumber (I’ve been putting it in ‘Sleep Mode’ instead of shutting it off when I’m done with it each time. I didn’t think this was going to cause a problem) and it started like it normally does, only to shut down after about 15 seconds. Upon rebooting, it did the same thing. “Oh great” I’m thinking to myself, “now what“? After letting it do this for a few minutes, I shut it down completely and let it sit for about 10 minutes, thinking that perhaps it needed to ‘cool off’ and I’d try it again. Welp, no difference, same result. It doesn’t even get to the point where I can actively access the BIOS, it reboots endlessly. I am working from my laptop again, trying to troubleshoot the problem remotely.

So far, according to various sources, it could be a number of things. Bad RAM (memory), although I think this highly unlikely because the memory has been in the tower since I built it. A bad or overworked power supply. Again, I don’t think this is the problem, simply because the power supply is a replacement, still practically new, and if anything it’s OVER powered, not under. Someone else with a similar problem suggested it might be a lack of thermal grease on the CPU, but since I purchased a new cooling fan for the CPU/motherboard, it came with its own thermal grease smeared on the underside of the heat sink. The other possibility is that the motherboard itself is shot. This might be possible, since it’s at least 5 years old, and it was present when the original power supply blew.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve tried several fixes, but nothing seems to work. I’ve gone so far as to disconnect all of the components that draw power, but when I go to turn on the computer, the same result. I really have a hard time believing that this is due to the power supply failing. I’d really rather not go to the expense of buying another PS, only to discover it was the motherboard all along.

Update: After a couple of frustrating days, I finally fixed the damn thing.  I was about to the point where I was going to purchase a new power supply, and hold onto the ‘old’ one when I found an obscure post from 2005 on a board that I frequent.  The person had the same exact problem that I did, and explained how he managed to fix it.  He removed the memory DIMMs (sticks) from their sockets and replaced them.  Just to be certain they were stuck in.  Once I did that and powered on the tower, it stayed running.  Crossing my fingers, I shut it off at the power button, put everything back together and carted it back to where my computer desk was.  Re-connected all the peripherals and voila!  It works.

Once I had it running, I made sure to back up the hard drive again, since it hasn’t been backing itself up over the last several days.  Made sure my email downloaded so it’s not cluttering up either the cloud or the mail server, and reveled in the wonder of being able to see on my 27″ monitor again.  Definitely not certain how long this is going to work, but it’s working for NOW.  A fact to which I’m grateful.  Now, on to other problems.