Help me diagnose this one..

[iamraymond]

I recently upgraded my parents computer. By adding a 1gig stick of RAM and a new video card

The current specs are:
2500+ Sempron
1280MB DDR400 RAM
ATI x1600
350w PSU
ECS 741GX-M (V1.0) Motherboard.

Now for my problem. The machine ran fine for one day. On the second day after the upgrade I ran into my major problem. It wouldn't start up. It would power on, but it wouldn't do a hardware check and I could hear the machine powering on twice. So I took out the new stick of RAM, and just left the old 256 stick in there and it did the same thing. It works sometimes, like when the computer has been off for a long time, it'll boot up fine(regardless of what RAM is in there). But when I restart, it won't boot up again. I'm getting really frustrated here. What could it be? Some friends suggested the power supply or the RAM. But I have no clue. Any ideas??

(Please note that I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to computer hardware)

TIA

 

[Dexaroni]

Sounds like there is a bad connection to your hard drive. Remove the molex connector and reinsert it, it should work a lot better.

 

[iamraymond]

Cool I'll check them when I get home. Any other suggestions?

 

[Dexaroni]

Not at the moment, I had that same thing happening with my computer, and it was because I had a bad connection to my HD.

 

[superdave1984]

Wonder what your temps are?

 

[hickfarm]

PSU?

It could be the PSU also. My cousins pc did that also. it would start up and shut off. All it needed was a new psu.

That is just another thing to keep in mind.

 

[iamraymond]

The temperatures seem fine. When it is running (I am on it right now) it does not have any problems. It performs perfectly fine and does not lag at all. However when I restart it, it won't boot up until I wait for a couple hours and it'll start running fine again. I tried the following: switching RAM, removing the new video card, checking all the power cables and unplugging opitcal drives (to check if the HD and CPU were getting enough power). Nothing has worked so far.. please help! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. My last resort would be bringing it to a technician, but that is a few towns away and will probably be expensive.

 

[hickfarm]

Just keep it on at all times. Never shut it off. LOL

That is really weird though. I don't know what the problem could be.

 

[iamraymond]

I think I figured out what was wrong with it. The power supply cable. I switched that and its running fine now and boots up everytime. Thanks for the help guys

 

[hickfarm]

go figure

That is such a simple little thing. You should of checked that right away.

At least you got it working again.