Mysterious System Failure

[RogerRose]

Hello all,

I'll start off by saying that this system has been working good for well over a year now, no problems till just the other day... i found that it was powered down and its usually constantly up so i tried powering it up to no avail, i'd unplug power-supply plug it back and try a powerup but this time it would begin to start but abruptly shutdown, fans would spin the harddrive would just begin to spin and then nothing, sometimes the monitor will get a chance to pop on and others it won't.. on one rare occasion it actually powered up but it didn't post, it instead gave me the bios screen with an error message: "Your system hung for improper CPU external speed setting." (not an exact quote but you get the idea).. anyway this problem has me stumped, i never ran into this one before and i can't even get into bios to change the cpu fsb freq or anything but now i'm wondering if thats really even the problem as the system's been running good for over a year like i said.. i've tried unplugging components, taking out ram, put in a new vid card, checked the cpu heatsink/fan for proper seating, pulled the bios battery out and put it back... and i'm left here wondering if its the powersupply? swapping things out i noticed something strange, the system would turn on(with no beeps) and stay on when there was no devices plugged in(my HD, DVD-rom)...but when i'd plug my HD back in and try a powerup it would stop abruptly.. it did this constistently so does anyone have any advice or insight into this problem, could it be my powersupply that's the culprit? is the powersupply not getting enough juice to power up the system? i don't have very many components in the system as you can see...

my system specs:

Asus P4S800 motherboard, P4 2.0ghz
1.7 gigs ram
1 hd, Dvd-rom
geforce mx4000 128 (new vid card)
Coolmax ps-450sx(cx-450) power supply

[ATS]

I would speculate the it would be your cpu. It is a rare instance that they go out but one thing I have learned workig on computers is anything can go wrong. The reason I beleive that it is the cpu is that it will not beeb or go into the bios. Your powersupply is powerups everything, but your computer is not proccessing. Your procesor could have overheated and died. I know it is not good news, but I hope it helps.

[goldeagle2005]

You said that the problem recurs with the HD connected. Can you see if the problem occurs with the HD connected on another computer? I've seen this problem on a friend's computer. Exact symptoms you described. As soon as I removed his HD, the computer booted up fine. I then ried the HD on my machine, and experienced the same problem. Luckily his HD was under warranty. I suspect your HD.

[grandman]

hey does anyone know how this was solved?