Athlon system locking up on start up. Is it MoBo, Processor, PSU or what?

As with most stories, mine needs a small introduction.

About 6 months ago I had just started to burn a cd when the power went out. The outage caused some very severe XP issues and I eventually had to do a format and reinstall.
Also about that time, I started seeing some strange behavior from the computer during start up.
I want to make it clear that I am only speculating that the power outage caused this behavior, I can't definately say that the power outage was the start of it (due to the fact that the software was so screwed up, if it was locking because of hardware, I couldn't seperate those locks from the software), but I am resonably sure it was. Ok, back to the story.
The strange behavior during startup was almost as if the computer had to warm up before it would work. If I turned it on after it had sat for a long time, say over night, it would generally boot until the windows splash screen, but lock up there. If I reset it might get farther and lock or it might start up all the way. The 2nd or 3rd time might make it all the way to windows, but lock after a couple minutes. Generally It would lock off the cold start but by the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th reset it would make it all the way up and be fine until the next time I turned it off for an extended period. When it locked, the monitor would continue to show the same thing I had been viewing and the keyboard lights would not react. ctrl + alt + delete had no effect. Only a restart affected it.

I had these symptoms for months, and I mostly ignored them because I figured it was working and I wasn't really sure what it could be, so I let it go.

Fast forward to a month ago. About this time the computer started locking during normal use, meaning not during start up. Before, once I got it past the initial lock ups it could be on for weeks at a time with no problem. A month ago, it started locking up randomly, with no obvious cause. I tried to replicate the lock ups and was unable. It would lock about once every 3-5 days, and one restart was all it needed to fix it. Then about a week ago, it started locking up more frequently, about every other hour. At this point, a restart was all it needed. Then, a day ago, it was locking every 20 minutes. After about 4 lock ups and restarts, it did not post (no beeps) on the restart. At that point, I figured it was done and I let it be.

Since then I have experimented and discovered this:

If I let it sit for a couple hours, on my first cold start, it will post and boot all the way to windows, but will lock less than a minute later. If I reset it will post and lock before or during the windows splash screen. If I reset it a second time, I may or may not get any beeps. If I do, it locks after only one or two (I think there are three) beeps. If I reset yet again, it will not beep at all. Almost as if it only works when cool, and works less when hot. During all of this, all the lights, case to keyboard, all the fans (4 case, 1 PSU, 1 processor, 1 mobo, 2 videocard) spin, all the drives spin up and the mouse led lights up. It just doesn't beep or start the bios or anything.

One guy I spoke to suggested it was a processor heat issue, so I dusted everything and put a 10" house fan pointed at the processor, while leaving the heat sink and proc fan in place. No change. The proc fan is spining fine and is working well as far as I can tell. I also took off the heat sink and respread the heat goop.

I figure it acts like a mobo or processor problem, but the fact that I can get it to start windows sometimes confuses me. Other possible causes that have been suggested are power supply and video card. That doesn't leave much else in the computer and I would like to narrow it down before I start replacing parts.

The system:

Athlon 1900
512 MB Ram
Soyo Dragon Plus! Mobo
Nvidia 4200 Video card


Can anyone out there help?

Thanks in advance.

First thing I would do, you already did. Make sure the CPU fan is working fine. Next take out all your cards except one video card and disconnect all the IDE drives except your boot HD. See what happens then. I just had the same issues as you. I reformatted Harddrives, put in a new CPU and a new HD. Problem remained. I blamed the Mobo.

Did you ever get the issue resolved, or do you still have it? If you got rid of it, I would love to know how.

Thanks for the help.

I had the mobo for 11 months and it was guaranteed for 12 months so I sent it back. They sent me a new one. The new one has different problems. That is for another thread...

I had simular problems and after changing out everythin but the power supply (couldn't be my Antec true 550) I still had the same problems so I attached my old power supply a couple of days ago and have not had a cold boot lockup,warm lockup or automatic reboot problem since. After months of trying to cure my problem I hope you have better luck with a quicker fix. If you hear you hard drive click a couple of times before lock at boot I would definetly try changing out the power supply. (The double armature click on the hard drive was the one constant I had before cold boot lockup so naturaly I changed out the hard drive first.) The power outage you spoke of may in fact have caused a problem with the power supply even though you would think a surge protector would protect it (I'm sure you have one). I also looks like Lennynj99 is doing the same things I did and may need to try a different psu.

I hope this reply isn't to late (if it is your psu). I found this thread when I was looking for answers a couple of weeks ago.

Same problem as Skaaustin. It is the PSU. My hard drive also clicked couple times before hang. I reduced the number of fans (from 6 to 3) and it worked alright. I almost bought a new computer. Thanks.

Similar problem with cold boot on my machine.

amd 2600 barton
a7n8x dlx 1.06
Antec Tru330
ti4200
2 hard drive, dvdrom,cd burner

My hard drive would also "chirp" during cold boot and sometimes give a .sys file not found message. But resetting a few times usually solve the problem.

Thought it was harddrive, even though all diagnostics report no error. Replaced hd but problem persist.

I had a cheap ECS MB lying around so I swapped out the asus but problem persist.

I guess now the only thing left is my PSU. I was thinking maybe I need one more more juice. Was looking at the antec tru430 or 480 but if the tru550 has issues. This might be a problem with antec design.

Any recommendations for a good quality PSU?