My computer is a bad morning person... any advice?

Meowster · Wed 05/12/2007 02:32:00

Hey guys,

My computer is weird. In the past two or three weeks (since the cold weather has REALLY set in), she's started to freeze a lot... but ONLY in the morning!

When I first turn her on in the morning, she freezes at various stages for no reason, forcing me to reboot. An example would be as follows: I turn her on, check my email, she freezes. I reboot, she freezes on the startup screen. I reboot again, read the internet for a bit, and she freezes. Then after about 20 minutes of being turned on, she is perfectly normal for the rest of the day. In fact, I've kept her on for three days non-stop now, and not a single problem have I had.

Why is she such a bad morning person? Does anybody have any idea what could be causing this? My boyfriend keeps his PC in the same room and his works fine, so it can't be just because she's cold.... Â¬Â¬

Domino · Wed 05/12/2007 02:36:57

PMS

edit: do a virus scan and also defrag the hard drive, this may help her problems.

SSH · Wed 05/12/2007 08:06:54

If you get it to Hibernate rather than shut-down, does the problems still happen?

Nostradamus · Wed 05/12/2007 08:20:05

Sounds like possibly faulty fans to me. If they're not working well computer overheats and either shuts down or restarts for protection. It's possible that when you start up your computer they don't get the electrical charge well enough so they don't spin fast enough, computer over heats, shuts down. Then after a while they get the charge and start working.
BUT it's only a matter of time before they burn completely and then your PC could really be damaged, be it CPU, another board, hard drive. First of all you should check your current CPU temperature anyway. If above 60 add\replace fans. If getting close to 80 it's critical. And anyway you should look at changing your fans ASAP.

And once for all, DO NOT turn off your PC every night and on every morning. That was the correct way to act in the 90's but today's computers are built to be on all the time, and turning off and on so much time all it does is damage. Today's computers manufacturers assume people would have them working all the time because that's the need the consumers demand and build them that day providing suffiecent cooling (and trusting the user to add cooling if adding hardware and cleaning fans with compressed air from time to time to keep the dust from flogging them) Everytime you turn off and on the electrical charges shock the hard drive, the CPU and over time they damage them slowly and shorten their lifespan.

So replace your fans, make sure their temperature is no more than 50, air clean the fans from time and time and just leave the PC on all the time.

zabnat · Wed 05/12/2007 10:12:36

Quote from: Nostradamus on Wed 05/12/2007 08:20:05
Everytime you turn off and on the electrical charges shock the hard drive, the CPU and over time they damage them slowly and shorten their lifespan.

And when the PC is on the electrical charges shock the components constantly! :o

Yeah, check the fans. Just open the chassis and see if they all start up when turning her on.

On the other hand, this seems like exactly the problem I had a while ago. And it turned out to be a faulty motherboard. I never was able to cold boot with just one boot. I always had to remove the cover and wiggle some parts to make it boot to windows

Ishmael · Wed 05/12/2007 18:23:19

Some component is most likely failing. Bad memory or motherboard has just forced a reboot for me and all I know, never frozen the whole thing. So after checking the fans, defragging and virus scanning you should chkdsk your hard drive and run memtest. If those come out clean too, it's likely the graphics card in my experience, but could be motherboard or CPU aswell.

Buckethead · Wed 05/12/2007 18:44:58

Well it's cold in the morning. I'm also freezing when I'm on my way to school

Nostradamus · Wed 05/12/2007 19:57:22

Quote from: zabnat on Wed 05/12/2007 10:12:36
Quote from: Nostradamus on Wed 05/12/2007 08:20:05
Everytime you turn off and on the electrical charges shock the hard drive, the CPU and over time they damage them slowly and shorten their lifespan.
And when the PC is on the electrical charges shock the components constantly! :o

NO, when the PC is on the hardware gets constant normal low electrical charge. When turning on and off it gets a high level electrical shock and that does the damage in the long run.

DoorKnobHandle · Wed 05/12/2007 20:08:27

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=31298.0

I had to get a new motherboard though. The capacitors had in fact popped.

zabnat · Fri 07/12/2007 11:45:08

Quote from: Nostradamus on Wed 05/12/2007 19:57:22
Quote from: zabnat on Wed 05/12/2007 10:12:36
Quote from: Nostradamus on Wed 05/12/2007 08:20:05
Everytime you turn off and on the electrical charges shock the hard drive, the CPU and over time they damage them slowly and shorten their lifespan.
And when the PC is on the electrical charges shock the components constantly! :o

NO, when the PC is on the hardware gets constant normal low electrical charge. When turning on and off it gets a high level electrical shock and that does the damage in the long run.

And that is what the regulators are for.

BOYD1981 · Fri 07/12/2007 15:54:08

i turned my PC on one morning when it was about 5Â°c in my room (seriously, i NEVER have the heating on) and after about a second there was a real loud pop and then no power at all.
although this did actually happen after i hadn't turned the pc on for about two months because it wouldn't turn on again after a power cut, so that was probably due more to the PSU being slightly damaged anyway, or rapid expansion of a component within the PSU due to the cold temperature (i have an aluminium case so i suspect the temperature within it was actually colder), although i doubt it.

shbaz · Sat 08/12/2007 00:22:46

Quote from: zabnat on Fri 07/12/2007 11:45:08
NO, when the PC is on the hardware gets constant normal low electrical charge. When turning on and off it gets a high level electrical shock and that does the damage in the long run.

And that is what the regulators are for.
[/quote]

I know how a regulator works and it's just another op-amp microchip, just as susceptible to current bursts as any other component, yet I must say engineers have been aware of this problem for a very long time and all of the components I've ever designed for were rated for power on. It's a non-issue. Just like cheap capacitors in Chinese power supplies you might have issues with this, but not because it shouldn't work, it'll be because the failing part was a real piece.

I don't know how many people here know this, so I'll throw it out there - resistance rises with temperature. A cold computer is a very fast and well-run computer. If it fails due to rapid temperature change (they do have minimum temp ratings because the thermal gain from running the PC can cause rapid expansion and tear the fine wires that connect the silicon chip to the chip leads) the failing part will just die, not intermittently fail.

I'd go with the fans idea..

Stupot · Sat 08/12/2007 00:25:54

This might solve your problems.
www.pc-anti-freeze.com