Dead Computer
Well, a problem that had been messing with my computer has finally claimed it. For the past year or two, the computer would randomly cut off sometime during the day. This only happened once a month. The other problem would be that it would fail to boot a couple of times until i would let the thing sit in BIOS for about a minute so and then boot it.
Well, it has gotten to the point where even that doesn't boot it properly, it is just a matter of luck. "Luck", ironically, only means that it successfully boots, because it then shuts off without warning in about 10-15 minutes.
At first, I thought it was the power supply. The PSU's fan runs at an extremely low RPM and sometimes doesn't even report to the motherboard how fast it is turning. Well, my brother handed me a PSU that came with his case that he never used, and I replaced it. Well, same problem, no change.
Then I noticed that the computer would abruptly shut off when booting only when it attempts to read from the hard disk. Ok, I don't have a spare with any form of OS on it, so the next best thing is disconnecting the HDD and popping in a Kubuntu disc, let it boot using Live CD. Well, the computer -seems- to run stable, but unfortunately, the thing still shuts off during booting. This is only on the initial start-up, if it waits for a while it seems to boot with no problem.
At this point, I don't know what it is. It -could- be the video card, which makes a lot of noise on the initial boot, possibly to test the fan or go through some kind of self-test. If that's the case, I'm fucked, the mobo has no integrated video out, and its an AGP slot. It could be the processor, but unfortunately the processor's slot type is obsolete. It could be the motherboard, but again, the slots on it are old and therefore it would be a bitch to replace. It could even be some other random problem I haven't thought of yet.
It all boils down to one thing, the computer would need some money invested in it to repair it, and I don't know exactly what is causing the problem. Even if I did, would it really be worth throwing the money at it? The computer runs fine when it isn't shutting off for no damn reason, but it is severely limited when it comes to the new games coming out. I've had the thing for about 4 years, so I could use a new computer.