Just got a couple new pc's happening, asus something or others, not top line stuff, but very solid for what i need. Huge improvement-i even have sound now. Yay! One, after a trip back to the shop, and some updated drivers, is now running fine, the other-well its also running, now, but it still has an issue-it freezes on the xp pro loading screen, and wont budge from there. It will start (seemingly) reliably from either hitting reset at that stage, or from standby or restart, but only seems to run every other time when starting up from off. Weird thing, is these are the only units the computer guy has EVER had returned, and he doesn't know what the problem is either. Talking about a guy who has been in computing since the 80's, and his personal system has 7 terrabits of memory, so he knows what hes doing. Any ideas?
I had a problem similar to this during the winter (I slept with my window slightly open). Reason being was that my CPU fan had a temperature monitor inside the CPU cooler and whenever the case had a low temp, the CPU fan would also have a low RPM. So when it initially boots up the CPU fan RPM would be low and I assume the CPU was too hot because it requires a lot of processing power to boot up windows for those few seconds. I don't have that problem anymore now that my room isn't cold. And it didn't have problems restarting because the temp in the case had already risen. I was noticing that in the BIOS the CPU fan RPM was 1600 and CPU temp was in the mid 30s (I assume at that point the fan RPM is controlled by the MoBo). But right after a successful bootup into windows, the CPU temp would usually be over 60 (not overclocked mind you!) and CPU fan RPM was 600-700. But then over time the CPU temp would go down and CPU fan RPM would go up to about 800 idle as the PC case temp went up (measured by sensors on the MoBo). So, if your CPU fan is controlled by temperature sensors, it could be the same problem I had. Though I'm not 100% sure that was the problem, just speculating. Not sure if I made sense... it's 5:30 am -_-
Thanks bespoke, that's something i would never have thought of-in laymans terms, a thermostat problem? When the pc was taken back to the shop, the guy said "who overclocked this?", rest assured, it wasn't me, the thing was brand new from the shop, and just plain old didn't work. He didn't put them together himself though, he got a lackey to do it-this guy isn't exactly Mr Munificent as an employer i gather, and was a bit dark about the whole thing. The guy sells millions in hardware, never a return, and two ordinary personal pc's come back as inexplicable duds? The first return, they both worked perfectly in the shop-maybe there could be something to the temperature control.
I once had a computer develop "issues"... inconsistent BSODs, freezups... Turned out to be an aging CPU fan... it had slowed, but not stopped... but wasn't cooling enough. Heat issues are always a good to investigate for inconsistent problems...
Just run of the mill browsing, home office/ a bit of eod charting, nothing too stressful, i don't game either. The problems were present from new, so it hasn't actually been used for anything much at this point. It kinda sucks, i think that one should probably have been replaced, (i didnt order them personally) but it has to be something simple. Great price, but would you buy a car that starts randomly, no, its dodgy, a lemon. Maybe theres a patch out there for this problem that i can try? Worth a look.
Maybe not, microshit has sweet f.a on the problem, (please select payment option) asus australia don't do tech support for pc's, period. So i dont know if its hardware or software-must be software conflict, of some sort, the ultimate lemon. Worked in the shop, worked intitially here (enough to provide some false hope) and now is still a dud. I mean it runs, but hitting reset everytime it powers up, no thanks.
I like the "it gets warm and switches itself off theory." Get into the bios and turn off the temperature based shutdowns (after observing that the temp is actually ok!) Then perhaps run something like mem86 to stress the system a bit and after 4 or 5 minutes exit and check the temps in the bios screen. Then push it harder ... and so on. Or you could just try setting the bios settings to conservative rather than optimised and see if that sorts it out.
I just spent a STUPID amount of time chasing down errors on a new system with ASUS mobo. Hang on boot. Random BSODs. Turns out Crucial was going through some problems with RAM. Anyway, some ideas... You can set windows to stop on the BSOD so you can google the error code. You can also use a utility to see your system temps. In a newer system, I'd be suspicious about temps. That shouldn't be the problem. I like PC Wizard 2008. There are also some RAM testers. Memtest is what I used. Memtest+ is the latest (apparently a newer developer pushed this extension). I've built lots of systems and NEVER had this much fun! You can lose your life down that rat hole!! Good luck!