Machine startup issues

Question

Posting this on my father's behalf to try and diagnose what's up with his machine:

The machine is around 5/6 years old, I can't remember the exact spec and has recently been suffering from the following problems when turning the machine on:

• The machine initally starts to power up, then just seems to loose power. It requires a forceful turn off (10s on power button) to be able to start the power up process again. Normally this process needs to be repeated until the machine 'warms up'. Once it's been running for a while you can shut it down and start it up with out problems.

• Sometimes the machine will start up with certain devices disabled. E.g. the mouse won't be working one time, restarting the machine and the graphics card might be on the blink, yet a 3rd time all might be working fine.

All seems a bit strange, if anyone has any incline as to what might be the problem it'd be great to hear.

Answer 1

As others have mentioned, it seems to be a problem with the motherboard and I think the best solution here is to simply purchase a new computer.

To replace the motherboard you would need to buy another one that is exactly the same, and as you mentioned, the machine five years old so finding another one wouldnt be easy.

Second, I think you would benifit from the improved performance of modern PCs, even ones that come at a low price.

Finally, I would back up the computer to an external hard drive, incase the problem motherboard effects the hard drive. This would also make it easier to copy the data back onto a new PC.

Answer 2

Its the motherboard, this explains the random problems. If it was a power issue the issue would be continuos. I reccomend splashing out on your old man and getting him a new motherboard