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PC turns off during boot

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by oursouls

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I think I already know the answer to this is a new motherboard, well that or run this PC without a graphics card.

When turning on the PC, it will get just beyond the windows logo screen and then simply turn off. No blue screen, or warning, just the power cuts off. I've tried this with two different graphics cards, (both ATI, x800 and x1950)

I can start the PC fine just by disabling the graphics card, and sometimes the PC will start fine even with the cards enabled.

What I want to know is if there is a way of finding out the exact fault with the motherboard that's causing this.

I have updated bios and all drivers, I've also tried a variety of ATI drivers, still no luck. The strange part is in the fact that there is no error, just a simple power cut out.

Anyone have any ideas what exactly could be causing this?

8 replies

by cmiller5400

This could be the power supply not supplying enough power to all attached peripherals. Try a different higher watt power supply or unplug some of the peripherals that you don't need to boot and see if it boots.

by oursouls

I have tried with a bare minimum of just one harddrive and the graphics card. Still no luck. That said, I might have a spare PSU somewhere, I'll give that a go.

The question is, does disabling the device drivers stop the power supply from supplying to the card?

by brian

no, if you are disabling the device driver in windows or in the bios it will still supply power to the card (in all systems i've worked on). the only sure fire way to stop supplying any power to the card is to completely remove it.

by oursouls

...Only, the facts remain. Disable the device, and it works no problem. Enable the device and you have maybe a 30% chance of a successful boot. As said, there are no error reports, or blue screens. That's basically what I don't understand. It just powers off. The PSU makes sense from that point of view, but not from any of the others.

Hence really why I'm asking, this is the only time I've really come across something as unusual as this.

It's driving me nuts!

by paul.a.wisniewski

Had same issue a couple months back check and make sure your cpu is clean and the fan on cpu is spinning , all i did was removed
fan and clean it like it was new also re-sat
the cpu , it fixed the problem
if that doesn't work something is shorting the board make sure no screws are lieing on board or in back of board, if that doesn't do it remove everything form board and try booting it with just ram , and add each item until you find what is shorting the board

by oursouls

I have looked into the temperatures of the CPU and they all seem fine. I suppose potentially something could be stopping the fan which would automatically turn off the PC although I'd expect some form of warning beep first.

Bit of a pain, but I will try completely reconstructing the PC from scratch. Whatever is causing it though definitely seems to be related to the graphics card. Something physical that's different when the drivers are installed.

i.e. A circuit that's only enabled with the appropriate drivers while no drivers would by-pass the circuit.

Perhaps I should also study the physics of the graphics card itself.

by ---tk---

I would try booting with only one stick of RAM ... Also, I would try booting to a linux live CD, if the Live distro boots fine to CD it could just be the OS or the HDD... Very unlikely its the HDD, but I have scene the HDD cause this kind of symptom (once in 10 years... but still)

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