The Verdict...

[realsorien]

... Is odd. s it turns out the mother board and everything I suspected could have been the problem were fine. It was the power supply. Which is weird as it had the same symptoms before the upgrades- maybe the old one was ALSO dying. But this will teach me for getting a refurbished power supply. The NEW one will be a 750 Antec. I'll also pick up a new cable for the stupid wireless so I stop knocking it over, and I might pick up a new set of cheap-ass $20 speakers- the power button on the ones I've got is dying. All in all I was expecting up to $300 for the repairs- its gonna be about $150 counting the cable and the speakers. Whee for not having to pay as much!

Comments

[foeclan.livejournal.com]

Did you mention the potential heat issues, and did they test those components, or did they just fix the immediate issue with the power supply? Not powering on is your current problem. The long-term crashes and shutdowns are the real problem that needs solving.

(I would expect them to test the other stuff, since they're good or I wouldn't have recommended them in the first place, but it's easy to find one issue and gloss over the rest)

Yes!

[sorien.livejournal.com]

I made a point to mention the heat issues, and they did test the system- everything seemed just fine, but it was REAL obvious that the power supply was croaked. As an aside, khirsahdrgn mentioned that a friend of his also suggested that the symptoms really sounded like a failing power supply too.

zxizaraxii mentioned that it could possibly have been that the supply was overtaxed, leading to the failure- I dunno.

There was a moment of fright on my part when they said that the graphics card could be fried, but that turned out to not be the case. Whew!

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

It was pretty cool, actually. They identified that the power supply was the primary issue, replaced it, and then started testing other parts of his system.