The machines are sentient and they're screwing with us

[Glom]

Over here we are utterly befuddled by the behaviour of my computer.

Last week it broke. It wouldn't start up, not even show the BIOS. The lights and fans came on but it was vegetative.

So presuming processor issues (it was 8 years old). So I bought a new motherboard and processor. After installing it, there was no change. Same performance.

Suspecting it might be the PSU, we took it to my friend's place where he has more resources, including a speaker. Suddenly it just works now. We're at a loss to explain it.

Of course, that is now only the beginning of the trouble as we now have to re-install the OS, because Windows has the hump over the change of hardware. Also, maybe all those turn-on-turn-offs didn't do it much good either.

[LunarOrbit]

The same thing happened to my PC at work a couple of months ago. I didn't really have time to waste trying to diagnose and fix it... it was easier (and probably cheaper) to just go out and buy a new one. But it was exactly like what you described... the lights and fan worked, but that's it. So now I'm curious what caused it.

[Allan F]

Sounds like faulty ram. If there is no working ram onboard, it won't show the POST-screen.

edit: Did it beep?

[LunarOrbit]

I don't remember if mine beeped or not. It might have. I remember the fan sounded kind of weak.

[Echnaton]

Mine did that a few hours ago.  I took it out to blow off the dust from the heat sink. Then back inside and nada.  I jiggled and wiggled all the cables.  The voltmeter showed the powercord had power.  I reattached the TV antenna and the instant the inner conductor of a cable made contact the blasted thing started.  Now the motherboard USB ports dont work.  Grrr.  How do connectors attached to the MB stop working?  My usb 3 card works just fine, once the computer boots, but won't work for BIOS control.  I may have to find an old PS2 keyboard from the junk pile at work.

They really are to the point that it is almost a throw away.  It is just that I don't want the nightmare that is Windows 8.  Or to spend my time doing an upgrade to from 8 to 7.  We are hoping to hang on till Windows 10 comes out and are saving up for two new computers in the spring.

[Allan F]

I don't remember if mine beeped or not. It might have. I remember the fan sounded kind of weak.

Then it's probably the PSU which has dropped one of the 12V lines. The CPU won't start up on many mainboards unless the CPU fan is running - did you look at that?

[Luke Pemberton]

I was having problems with my laptop. Up until a few weeks ago I had numerous BSOD and shutdowns due to a graphics card driver error, every night for about three weeks. Then the problem simply stopped.

Maybe Jarrah White is trying to blow up our hard drives to get his own back on Jay blowing up his hard drive many years ago. 

[Allan F]

Mine did that a few hours ago.  I took it out to blow off the dust from the heat sink. Then back inside and nada.  I jiggled and wiggled all the cables.  The voltmeter showed the powercord had power.  I reattached the TV antenna and the instant the inner conductor of a cable made contact the blasted thing started.  Now the motherboard USB ports dont work.  Grrr.  How do connectors attached to the MB stop working?  My usb 3 card works just fine, once the computer boots, but won't work for BIOS control.  I may have to find an old PS2 keyboard from the junk pile at work.

The mainboard USB-ports could be fried by the quite high voltage you could get from an antenna-cable. Other parts of the mainboard could be damaged too, and work intermittently.

I have a small business on the side assembling computeres for private and business. I'm not an expert by any means, but have some experience "remote-healing" computers.

LO - The PSU-thing - do you by any chance have a multimeter and can measure the voltage on the different lines?

[Allan F]

I was having problems with my laptop. Up until a few weeks ago I had numerous BSOD and shutdowns due to a graphics card driver error, every night for about three weeks. Then the problem simply stopped.

Maybe Jarrah White is trying to blow up our hard drives to get his own back on Jay blowing up his hard drive many years ago. 

Did you update the driver? It might be your mainboard RAM which has a fault. Easy fix - buy new ones.

[Glom]

The ram was an early concern when the old one went, but the ram is brand new with the new motherboard bundle. Also, of course the hard drives (I have two I it) but I was able to access them just fine by hooking them up to my laptop.

When the new bundle showed the same problem, the only other unverified common factor was the PSU.

But when we got it to my friend's house, it mysteriously came to life.

Naturally, popping out to PC World and getting a new one was an option, but I too hated the idea of getting stuck with Windows 8. Plus, you learn more about these contraptions this way and that has value itself.

Still, as I try to work the OS reinsallation problem, I have a feeling this is going to end up like Trigger's Broom before long.

[LunarOrbit]

LO - The PSU-thing - do you by any chance have a multimeter and can measure the voltage on the different lines?

I don't, sorry. I don't think I even have access to that computer any more. We moved the hard drive to an external drive enclosure and possibly kept the RAM and video card, but I think the rest was scrapped.

I agree that the PSU was probably the issue though.

[Echnaton]

The mainboard USB-ports could be fried by the quite high voltage you could get from an antenna-cable. Other parts of the mainboard could be damaged too, and work intermittently.

Anything is possible.  It seems more likely the tuner card would have gone out.  But the computer was off at the time of connection, so......

I built all my computers for years, but stopped some time after Vista came out because the off the shelf computers had pretty much what I wanted and the difference to me in the cost of the OS vs the OEM meant I couldn't save enough money to make it worth my while.  If a visit to the BIOS doesn't fix this, I'll throw away the dialup modem and put in USB2 card in its place. 

[Allan F]

The ram was an early concern when the old one went, but the ram is brand new with the new motherboard bundle. Also, of course the hard drives (I have two I it) but I was able to access them just fine by hooking them up to my laptop.

When the new bundle showed the same problem, the only other unverified common factor was the PSU.

But when we got it to my friend's house, it mysteriously came to life.

Naturally, popping out to PC World and getting a new one was an option, but I too hated the idea of getting stuck with Windows 8. Plus, you learn more about these contraptions this way and that has value itself.

Still, as I try to work the OS reinsallation problem, I have a feeling this is going to end up like Trigger's Broom before long.

This may sound strange but did you try to turn the power cord half a turn around in the wall outlet?

edit: The simple act of moving it could have re-seatet a component in the PSU, which was badly soldered. Just giving the case a good whack sometimes helps. Both on the computer, but also on the user's temper.

[LunarOrbit]

I must be one of the only people that likes Windows 8.

If you use a lot of keyboard shortcuts (like I do) you probably won't find it too hard to adapt to. It only really hurts if you rely heavily on the mouse to do things, but even then it doesn't take too long to get used to it. And I really believe that the changes are necessary if touch input is going to catch on. The old Windows UI sucks worse on a touch screen than the Win8 UI does on a normal mouse/keyboard setup, in my opinion.

I've been playing with Windows 10 in a VirtualBox. So far I do see some improvements but think they've taken a big step backwards with touch input. But it's too early to judge.

[smartcooky]

I must be one of the only people that likes Windows 8.

If you use a lot of keyboard shortcuts (like I do) you probably won't find it too hard to adapt to. It only really hurts if you rely heavily on the mouse to do things, but even then it doesn't take too long to get used to it. And I really believe that the changes are necessary if touch input is going to catch on. The old Windows UI sucks worse on a touch screen than the Win8 UI does on a normal mouse/keyboard setup, in my opinion.

I've been playing with Windows 10 in a VirtualBox. So far I do see some improvements but think they've taken a big step backwards with touch input. But it's too early to judge.

I despise Windows 8. After spending hours on my new laptop trying to do what should be relatively simple tasks such as (but not limited to).... 

► Opening two windows on the desktop and dragging files from one to the other (it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to even get to a desktop with icons and a taskbar

► Copying files from the HDD to a Removable drive
► Installing software which worked fine on Window XP, but will not work on Windows 8.

It also looks like someone decided to let that infernal sodding paper clip from "MS Office" loose in Windows 8. I just got fed up with being asked "would you like to....." or "do you really want to....." for every minor task I tried. For example, it kept insisting that my removable drive wasn't formatted correctly. In Windows XP, when you get these "helpful" suggestions, there is a check box that you can check to tell the OS not to ask you again. Not so in Windows 8. There is probably a way to turn them off, but by this time I am so pissed off and have wasted so much time just trying to make simple things work, that I was not prepared to commit any more time, so saved any data I had put on the HDD, formatted the HDD and reinstalled WinXP pro SP3

I can understand the need to improve the OS, but why on earth do they have to change the look, the feel and the way things operate. Porsche made huge improvements to their cars between the 1963 - 911 and the 2011 - 991, but the steering wheel and the ABC pedals are still in the same places and work the same way!! They didn't suddenly decide it would be a good idea to randomly swap the pedals around or put the steering wheel on the ceiling!