Compaq powers up and down by itself.

[littlebusinessg]

Compaq Presario S4000NX approximately 4 yrs old.
Yesterday, I added a DVD player burner and everything was working fine. I was able to power up and down without any issue and use the all of the drives. It worked great!
This morning, I woke up to find that my machine was trying to power up. No one pressed the power switch.
At issue: the machine if plugged in will power itself up and then after a couple seconds, sometimes even making it to the Windows XP splash screen, it'll power down. The same thing happens when I press the power button. Although, sometimes the power button will not work.
The power button will work if I unplug the machine for a few minutes.
It usually dies as it's powering up the optical drives - BUT, when I unplug the drives, it doesn't make a difference.

Now, I don't have a boat, so I can't use the machine for an anchor. I think Id like to fix it.

[littlebusinessg]

Put in a new PS. Still acts the same way.

[fren]

Set the bios in default values. Start your computer.

Try to reseat your memory sticks and test your system with one stick at a time in different slots.

[littlebusinessg]

Set the bios in default values. Start your computer.

Try to reseat your memory sticks and test your system with one stick at a time in different slots.

I tried reseating the memory and tried each stick individually. Didn't work.
As far as the BIOS is concerned, I can't even get that far now. As soon as I turn the power on, the COMPAQ splash screen comes up and then the system powers down.

I tried disconnecting the power switch to see if that would work (the new PS has it's own power switch) and still the same.

I pulled the battery from the motherboard too see if that would reset the BIOS.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[littlebusinessg]

Alright...get this:

After messing around with *&^*@^# thing,, when the PSU switch was turned to off, I pressed the power button on the front of the box. The leds on the front blinked quickly. I then started the machine and now it's booted and running!

Now, I'm scared of this thing that it's reliability is coming to an end. I'm also wondering whether or not to pull the new PS and return it and put the old one in OR if it's better to leave well enough alone.

[bondi007]

if you have got a new ps there is no poont puttng the old one back in

also
silly question

is it a pc or laptop

[littlebusinessg]

if you have got a new ps there is no poont puttng the old one back in

also
silly question

is it a pc or laptop

It's a PC about 4 years old. So I'm really thinking of keeping the new PS (Don't they usually die by now anyway?). Besides, it was only $20.

[fren]

I have used my compaq desktop with the original power supply for 7 years without any problems. Anyway, use a new power supply in your system and reserve the old one for future use.

[bondi007]

keep the psu in its worth it for long lasting power

Enjoy:)

[littlebusinessg]

Alrighty then. Now, I'm back to where I was. It was running for about 20 minutes and then it turned itself off again. It tried to restart again and immediately shut down.

I'm beginning to think that the old PS was going and as it's current fluctuated it did my MB in - maybe?

[bondi007]

i think your mb has bearnt out but im only kid and im learning

[fren]

It's time to clean the processor fan and the heatsink. Like what I said the problem might also be your ddr ram. Try to clean the gold contact of a memory stick with a pencil eraser before inserting it several times into its slot. In this process it will also clean the dimm slot at the same time. Use a soft brush to clean the dimm slot. Also try to use a known good stick.

If all of these did not work, the problem now lies on the motherboard.

[bobbyraw]

this does not have anything to do with the power supply. Your CPU is whats bad, check the fan, heatsink and thermal grease. if the grease if hard get it replace, if u have another processor thats is identical you could try replacing the present one.

[caperjack]

i say it the mommyboard !!my 2 cents on this one .

[littlebusinessg]

Thanks for all of your suggestions and input.

Nothing worked.

The motherboard and CPU are out and I ordered a new board and CPU to retrofit into the case.

Oh well.

On the other hand, we've been doing most of our stuff on my Linux box and my wife is liking it! Fedora 7 for those who care.

[theomajor]

If you find out what the problem is let me know. I have the exact same model and it is doing the same thing. I have not replaced anything on it yet. It is like it has a ghost. It will run for a little bit and then say it is shutting down. Sometimes it will save settings and shut down and then automatically start powering up again. I wonder if the hybernation mode on it would play any part in this. I don't have a clue but would appreciate any inexpensive advice.
theomajor

[littlebusinessg]

When i was actually able to get into the BIOS (sometimes it wouldn't stay up long enough to even finish POST), I turned off the hibernate and it didn't do any good. There wasn't any thermal turn-off, so that path wasn't taken. It's been a couple of months, but I think that was everything I've tried.

I ended up just replacing the mother board and CPU. I sent the mother board to a computer tech friend to mess around with and he hasn't gotten around to seeing what went wrong.

Sorry, I couldn't give you anything more to go on.
If I find out what happened, I'll post on this forum or to this thread.

[littlebusinessg]

I forgot, the first thing I tried was replacing the power supply. My tech friend thought that maybe the power supply's voltage regulation was off and therefore triggering the CPU to turn-off.
Didn't work.
I did need the new supply for the new board though, so it wasn't wasted. The new board was a 24 pin and the old PS was 20.

[theomajor]

Thank you littlebusinessg for the update. I don't know if it is possible to take out the power supply and have someone test it, but I may do that. I read in another forum from someone who had a similar problem and found out that there was a voltage regulator on the motherboard that had gone bad. I know very little about them so I would appreciate anything that you find out about your's.