I had recently purchased a new system since my old one died. I had to get it in a rush (and there were some other extenuating circumstances), so I purchased a pre-built system (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KN2YA8/ref=oss_product). It arrived and everything worked just as expected, but it had a cheap little LiteOn power supply which was only 300W, and a cheap little budget graphics card. So, I figured I may as well put in my old 8800GT graphics card and 500W (I think it was?) Antec power supply.

Now, at first I was a bit reluctant to do this, but the power supply was the first thing I had tested on my old defunct computer, and I had also tried a different video card (actually, I replaced the motherboard and tried using its on-board integrated graphics—and to no avail), so I felt pretty confident they were fine. So, I went ahead, put them in, and it worked without a hitch. For a while.

This morning, when I tried to take my system out of sleep mode, the monitor would not get a signal. I tried rebooting a few times but still nothing. So I swapped my graphics card out with the little budget graphics it came with and suddenly I had gotten a signal on the monitor—however, it wouldn't get PAST the BIOS. So I tried putting a different hard drive with a Windows XP installation on there to see if it'd get to Windows, and it sort of did; it acted like it was CORRUPTED, though. I figured I'd try connecting the Windows 7 hard drive the new computer came with again, and suddenly it said Windows failed to start up properly and ASKED if I wanted to boot Windows in safe mode. (I think it may have asked me this when I tried using the XP drive, too; I should have paid closer attention, but I was frantically trying to get my new system to work.) Suddenly everything boots up fine. Then I tried shutting down and putting the 8800GT back in again.

And now here I am, everything ostensibly just fine. Maybe the CMOS configuration reset during all this? Maybe it was a problem caused by conflicting graphics drivers—but then again, it should have still had display in the BIOS long before it hits the OS on the hard drive—I really don't know. I probably should have checked to see if the peripherals (keyboard, mouse) lit up when it first powered on, but, again, I wasn't thinking. It's working now, but I'm afraid to put it in sleep mode or shut down after what happened this morning since it may not boot up again. Is it possibly my PSU is a ticking time bomb? Antec supplies tend to be good products, I'm pretty sure, but it's not unthinkable. Maybe there was just some loose connection which was resolved when I tinkered around?

Either way, I don't want to wait until I can't boot up my PC again. Anyone have any ideas? Are these telltale symptoms of any problem you guys are aware of?



Edit: Oh, sorry, I should try and list any specs I can (but most of them should be laid out on the page I linked).

OS: Windows 7 64-bit (preinstalled with this Acer system)
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 820 (at stock ~2.8GHz clock frequency)
6GB DDR3 (I'm not sure what speed or brand, but it looks like generic stuff without heat spreaders in there)
GPU: GeForce 8800GT 512MB (I think, anyway; DXDiag is reading 3,299MB video memory, but I read that's a common software bug), I also don't remember which OEM but it's a factory overclocked model, if I recall correctly
Motherboard: I'm really not sure… I'll have to look it up and edit this later.
640GB hard drive (also not sure which make)
Power supply: 500W Antec Earthwatts (came with my Antec Sonata III case I bought for my old system on Newegg, but using the Acer case this computer came with) Quote from: Hearts on Fire on August 31, 2010, 03:48:32 PM

...
1.  So I tried putting a different hard drive with a Windows XP installation on there to see if it'd get to Windows, and it sort of did; it acted like it was corrupted, though.
2.  Maybe the CMOS configuration reset during all this? Maybe it was a problem caused by conflicting graphics drivers—but then again, it should have still had display in the BIOS long before it hits the OS on the hard drive—I really don't know. I probably should have checked to see if the peripherals (keyboard, mouse) lit up when it first powered on, but, again, I wasn't thinking.
3.  It's working now, but I'm afraid to put it in sleep mode or shut down after what happened this morning since it may not boot up again...

1.  Windows does not allow the transfer of a hard drive from one computer to a different computer, without a reinstallation or repair (if you are lucky) of Windows.

2.  Some computers require several cold boots for the CMOS to reset itself.
3.  Some computers don't function properly coming out of Sleep Mode.

...If it was simply a bad configuration with the CMOS, then it could make sense that multiple boot attempts simply reset it. I tried maybe three times to boot my system up cold, then tried swapping hardware. It still wouldn't explain why I couldn't even see the BIOS screen until I swapped my graphics card out (monitor wouldn't get signal), and after I did that it just wouldn't get into Windows—just got the BIOS screen and then it was like black when it was supposed to hit the Windows boot-up screen...