....joy

[kierthos]

My computer froze up again and after I manually rebooted it, it didn't want to turn back on. Instead of the power button being a normal blue (it's a Dell), it just blinks orange and doesn't turn on.

So if I don't respond to anything (e-mail, posts) for a few days, that's why.

Edit: And now it's working again, and all I did was go down to work and back, leaving it off for about 20 minutes. I came back with some printouts of possible solutions, but before I tried any of them, I gave the power button one more try, and quite obviously, the computer is working again. What the fuck?

But I do think I'm going to get some blank CDs/DVDs and backup a whole shitload of files as soon as possible.

Comments

[jdack]

First guesses would be a wonky stick of RAM, or power supply issues, though those tend to be black/white. Might want to put a ram tester on a bootable disk and give it a run while you sleep.

[kierthos]

I actually had RAM problems some time ago (ended up replacing a stick), but I don't think that's it this time. I'm not getting the same kind of problems.

The power supply, on the other hand, I could easily believe. What's a good way to test to see if that's the problem?

[jdack]

Honestly without a volt meter, I can't think of anything. PSU is a (sort of) cheap item that just dies and you buy a new one.

Other possibilities are the mobo or the cpu, though again mobo problems tend to be work/dead. If you can get into bios you might want to watch the health meter for say 30 minutes and make sure it's not overheating.

CPU temp should never go much above 60 celcius. 40 or below is ideal.

[kierthos]

I ran this downloadable program to have it monitor the CPU temp. It seems to stay right around 40 degrees, but apparently, there was a spike to 60 degrees, while I was asleep.

I'm going to have a friend of a friend look at it this weekend. And probably get an external drive to back everything up.