Computer trouble (Hardware related)

[Isegrim]

Hi,

When I start the computer, it does the memory check and when it comes to detecting the IDE drives, it restarts. This is repeated several times until it works. I wouldn't mind that too much, but
a) it worsenes continuously
b) sometimes the computer restarts while running normally without warning (not overheat related!)

The machine has an AMD K7 (700 MHz) CPU on a VIA Mainboard, BIOS has never been updated so far and I recently replaced the fan of the power unit, because it was dusted so heavily that it stuck and the power unit kept overheating, causing many emergency shutdowns...

Anyone got an idea what the source of this problem is and more important, how I can work around that without replacing the mainboard?

[Moox]

Did you replase the faulty psu?
Have your ran a diagnosis on the drive surface aswell?

[Isegrim]

The power unit itself seems ok and the restart almost always occurs at that distinct point, so I guess we can rule that one out.
As for hard drive checking, I only used the windows standard tools (Scandisk and Defrag) but they didn't deliver any useful info...

[Barbarian]

It could be that your hard drive is on it's last bit of life and about to die completely too.
Is your system a desktop computer? If so... you can go buy a new hard drive. Tempoarily disconnect your old hard drive, install your new hard drive (Set the jumper pins on it to have it as a "Master" hard drive), format it and install Windows (that's if you're using Windows operating system are you)?Ã,  Anyways, once you format and install the OS on the new hard-drive, then turn off again, set your old hard-drive as a "slave" using the jumper-pins on it (the setting are usually clearly printed on the hard-drive).

Connect both the new "Master" hard-drive and your old, now "Slave" hard-drive to your hard-drive ribbon. Boot up and now hopefully the computer will find both your new Master hard drive along with your old hard-drive. Once your OS is fully loaded, you should now be able to access both your new and old hard drive, and then it's a matter of copying over all of your important files from your old hard-drive over to your new hard drive.

Another option, which I just did this past weekend and as I'm running a laptop, I bought an external USB hard-drive, then simply get my Windows botted up, plugged it in to a USB port and then it automatically recognized the new hard-drive, then I copied over all of my important file to the external USB drive.Ã,  You could use this option too on a desktop, and besides, it's a good, fairly easy and portable way to backup your important files and can easily transfer over to another computer if need to.

However, if your current hard-drive is about to die, then you should try and back up your important files somehow asap, then you'll probably need to install format and reinstall an OS (such as Windows) again anyways.

Good luck.

Edit: another thought is that your main power-unit may need to be replaced, as it you mention your problem happens when it tries to boot up the hard-drive, and at that time the hard-drive will try to draw some power from the main power... so if your main power-unit is fried, then that may be the cause of the problem as well. Anyways, I think it may be a hardware problem with the problem you mention, but with computers it's sometimes hard to pin down a specific problem like that.

[Isegrim]

First, thanks a lot for your detailed answer!

Fortunately, I have already made a backup recently...
The HDD is about four or five years old now, so you may be right. But a friend of mine told me that his HDD had recently died and he could at least get past the drives check (Which simply claimed the computer had no HDD anymore), but of course not much farther.
Personally (but I am no expert, so I asked here) I suspect the IDE controller on the main board...
I thought about what you said about the power unit, too: wouldn't it get warm in such a case? And wouldn't you hear the computer (It's a desktop, btw.) trying to spin up the drive just before power failure?

Anyway, if I get my fingers on another hard disk, I'll just try if mounting that one helps...

And should I have to replace the mainboard or even parts of it (although I still hope it won't come to that!), I'll change the power unit, too, just in case...