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thephantom
join:2001-04-24
Alamo, CA

thephantom

Member

Help: PC cycling ON and OFF

I need help with a very strange problem. I have a 2 year old PC. I assembled it myself and it has an Asus Sabertooth X58 motherboard, 3.07 gigahertz Intel Core i7 950, 64 kilobyte primary memory cache, 256 kilobyte secondary memory cache, 8192 kilobyte tertiary memory cache, 6 Gb memory, a couple of DVD R/W drives, and two 1 terabyte hard drives set up in a RAID configuration. I am running Windows 7 Pro, 64 bit. I have had absolutely no problems since starting it up 2 years ago.

Yesterday, the machine booted up and then turned itself off. Then it turned itself on. Then off. Then on. And so on. It just kept cycling on and off, never even making it to the Windows start up. At some point, it started up and finished getting all the way into Windows. It ran for hours, during which time I made a backup of all my files. It seemed to be fine. Nothing seemed wrong.

This morning, it started up fine. I decided to do an image backup and in the midst of that, it started cycling ON/OFF again. This was while it was in the middle of writing the backup to my external Seagate 1 Tb drive.

When it was cycling, at one point it asked me if I wanted to do a safe restart or normal windows start. I went with normal. It came up ok. And then it happened again. The next time it asked if I wanted to do some kind of check (I don’t remember exactly what it asked) and I said yes. It ran through, reinstalled some drivers for my hard disks and then came up. Except when it came up I had 2 extra drive letters. An F drive (D and E are my DVD drives) labeled “System Reserved”. It said it was 100Mb, had directories for “boot” and “system volume information” (the latter I can’t open). And then it cycled again, and the next time it came up it also had a G drive which seemed to have everything my C drive has. And it has been up ever since. I’ve completed the system backup and run a full malware bytes scan. I did the latter just for grins as I think I may have a hardware problem, not a software one.

I’m thinking my RAID set up got split up somehow.

2 questions:
1. Anyone have any clue whatsoever on why my pc cycles through ON/OFF? What should I look for?
2. If in fact my RAID got split, can I get it back again preferably in a non-destructive manner? Do you think that is indeed what happened?

I am at wits end. I assembled it, but I am by no means an expert on the hardware side of things. I did it just to see if I could. I would really appreciate any help anyone can share.

Thanks in advance.

(p.s. moderators, please move this to a more appropriate forum if this isn't where it belongs. Thanks)

CCat
We're all quite mad here
MVM
join:2005-12-06
Wonderland

CCat

MVM

Sounds like a similar problem I had. I added 2 more ram sticks when I went from x86 Win 7 to x64 Win 7.

I am by no means an expert on this, but you could check your ram for failure.
And make sure the contacts are clean and seated properly.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

What is the wattage of your power supply? Try unplugging some hard drives, case fans, dvd drive and see if it recycles...

I also had a similar problem and it turned out to be a dust ball under the motherboard. Cleaned it out and no more problems...

One other time it was a failing power supply and that is why I recommend unplugging some devices...

Veloslave
Geek For God
Premium Member
join:2003-07-11
Martinez, CA

Veloslave to thephantom

Premium Member

to thephantom
This can be tons of stuff...

Bad memory
Bad harddrive
Bad driver from a recent windows update (every now and then MS will make a Graphics driver an urgent update that installs automatically and if your hardware doesn't like it... it will do exactly what it is doing.)

Have you tried going into safe mode? (Tap F8 at boot up)

When (if) you are in safe mode you can look at the event viewer to look for problems, you can go into the device manager to start disabling almost everything hardware wise (except what it takes to start/run the sys) and then rebooting. If it does reboot normally after disabling hardware... then re-enable one piece at a time until you find out what is the problem

It could be a virus

it really could be a lot of things.

I would test HD, MEM first, look for any evidence of virus malware and then try disabling the hardware to see if it will get going.

If you do not know how to test the HD or RAM then you might bein over your head but we might be able to get you through.
Aranarth
join:2011-11-04
Stanwood, MI

Aranarth to thephantom

Member

to thephantom
Check your temps and make sure your fans are running.

Yes it could be corrupted raid array.
The change of boot drive letter is probably windows boot repair.

blakbas
join:2000-04-27
Woodbridge, VA

blakbas to thephantom

Member

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I had a bad power switch which was shorting out, that caused the same problems.

ps4321
@embarqhsd.net

ps4321

Anon

I too had these maddening symptoms with a bad power switch. Try setting your power options to "ask me what to do when the power button is pressed".....if you start getting messages that your button was pressed with in fact you did not press it, you will know this is the problem : ) if so, easy fix!

thephantom
join:2001-04-24
Alamo, CA

thephantom

Member

Thank you all for your replies. I've been away for the last week without access to the internet.

I'll go through your suggestions and see what I find. When I started up today (after it being off for a week plus) it started it's ON/OFF/ON/OFF/ON/OFF etc etc etc cycles. I pulled the power plug, kept it out for about 30 seconds and then re-plugged it and started it again. It worked (this time). Does that suggest anything to anyone?
TIA,

mainlands
join:2005-03-23
Marietta, GA

mainlands

Member

As soon as it starts I would pull the cord lead off the motherboard to the power button on the case and see if it stays on steady. I had a bad power button, and it would sometimes stay on for days and days, other times constantly reboot, etc..
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

1 edit

Gem

Premium Member

how are your temps?

mainlands
join:2005-03-23
Marietta, GA

mainlands

Member

No offense, but the heatsink/overheating theory would make no sense as his computer stays on for long periods occasionally.

jadinolf
I love you Fred
Premium Member
join:2005-07-09
Ojai, CA

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Premium Member

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Just had that happen on a new build Saturday morning.

Yep, the RAM sticks were not seated properly.
Gem
Premium Member
join:2005-09-10

Gem to mainlands

Premium Member

to mainlands
said by mainlands:

No offense, but the heatsink/overheating theory would make no sense as his computer stays on for long periods occasionally.

You are correct. My bad, sorry. I shouldn't be allowed to read these forums at night. Too tired.

thephantom
join:2001-04-24
Alamo, CA

thephantom to mainlands

Member

to mainlands
On the other hand, I set up a fan next to my PC and so far (today) it has remained on. I was thinking of adding a fan as it would be a pretty cheap solution if it actually works.

I do notice there are times as it is rebooting, I get a temperature problem and press F1 to go on.

Any idea about the RAID drive splitting itself? And also the appearance of another "drive" (named System Reserved) with a few folders in it: Recycle - which matches what is in my C drive recycle; Boot; System Volume Information; plus files called: bootmgr; and BOOTSECT.BAK.
thephantom

thephantom

Member

Update:
I reset it up as RAID1.

Unfortunately I am now rebuilding all my software. Before I did the RAID re-set up within the BIOS, I made an image backup. that seemed to be successful. I could not for the life of me get it to actually restore the image. Windows kept insisting I make a disk repair disk and then refused to use it. I have a collection of about 6 disk repair cd's now and I was not able to use any of them. It came close, but when I finally got it to point to the backup (which it was able to find), it would then stop before doing anything and fail. I tried for about 3-4 hours last night, and another 4+ hours this morning. Nothing worked.

So now I am trying to rebuild everything so it looks the way I want it to. Of course, things have changed over the last 2 years and some of the changes are annoying (to say the least). I have found some older versions and am slowly going through them. A very tedious process.