My “Johnny 5 computer”

[The Hat]

My Win 7 64 bit O/S is playing up like a spoiled child, and I can’t find an answer to it, it has me stumped all together.

I can go from it booting up by itself after it has been shut down for 5 seconds, all of the issues mentioned below only happen at the initial daily start-up.

Then it can on other occasions ignore the sound card but still play sounds but often enough the sound is lost, then it can just ignore the network card, it also can refuse or fail to find my router switch or the main router itself, in a nutshell it can refuse to allocate an IP address, but best of all it can change the system clock time by 1 day and a few hours, the time change is never exact, but always ahead, never back.

In a normal week I can have all of these individual things happen on a daily basics or then again none of them at all for a week and they don’t happen all at once either, just one issue a day, ironically it doesn’t effect the printers this time.

I’ve had this problem before with Win 7 over the years with just the sound, printers and network card going missing, but since then I have change the Motherboard, Ram, Sound Card CPU and Graphic Card and a complete fresh install, but now it’s added a few more items to its forgetfulness routine.

Anyone else have had any similar problems with their O/S, it’s like the second coming of Win Me.

I have ruled out all viruses or any other external influences, or any hardware issues also, so they can’t be a factor in any of this, it can even do this in Safe mode when it wants too, I reckon it’s purely down to the O/S itself taking on an occasional personal dementia attack, or just being a spoiled brat.

The machine work as normal once I insist on correcting the annoying problem and it never does it again right through the day, in fact it’s faultless..

 

[mikling]

Hat, how did you verify it was not a Power Supply problem hardware wise? I would put money on the power supply for two reasons, the self start routine, and it was one component that was not changed from the prior system AND you also performed a fresh install to rule out the OS. One of the power supply section stabilizes once it has warmed just crosses the line of functional otherwise, on a cold start it is on the other side of useable.

Power Supplies are important from a stability issue. One of the voltage rails rails is likely dropping out intermittently. Invest in the highest quality PS you can afford for the long haul.

Win 7 is sound, just that MS wants us to migrate away from something they have too little control over...hence free Win 10.

 

[stratman]

@mikling suggestion is sound. It is possible to easily check the voltage of the rails with a multimeter, but I do not want you to fry yourself because Mrs. The Hat will haunt me for eternity.

Power supplies are not all alike. There is great variability in function when comparing "apples to apples" from different distributors (most do not make the power supply carrying their brand name) as well as within a model line of a distributor. It is worth researching and paying sufficiently to get a stable and well performing PS.

Some reviews of Power Supplies:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/power-supplies,26.html
http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/psu_power_supplies/
http://www.anandtech.com/tag/psu

If you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole and calculate how much juice you may need for the components you have... http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator#Basic

There are other websites with info like this. These were a few I quickly found on Google that I have used in the past (except the voltage calculator). Buying excessive volts does not gain much except bigger electricity bills. Too little and you crap out. Unstable or poorly functioning power supplies can lead to aggravation and potential loss of components. I figure out the voltage requirements for my components (per rail) then up scale my purchase by 10-20% for headroom and upgrading or new components in the future.

 

[mikling]

The checking of voltages under no load is not that dependable in these circumstances, especially for intermittent problems. Testing under load...you gotta know what you're doing. unless you want the Hat to fly off.
In my 30+ years of assembling PCs, there is one make I always have come back to for long term reliability...Seasonic. They seem to do things right within various price points and have never let me down unlike other brands.
Check to see who actually makes the PS you purchase, you can get Seasonic within other brands for reasonable prices but the branded Seasonic is premium priced.

Also try disconnecting/removing all non essential items and see what happens on bootup, there could be flakiness in one of the components ...it costs nothing.

 

[stratman]

Also try disconnecting/removing all non essential items and see what happens on bootup, there could be flakiness in one of the components ...it costs nothing.

Good idea!

For didactic purposes... It is simple to check voltages at boot, under load and idle conditions with a multimeter. Dependability is a function of equipment and technique. Electrocution is from carelessness of which ignorance and stupidity are subsets. Do NOT attempt unless completely familiar with the procedure and safeguards.

Seasonic is a quality brand name, though not every single Seasonic has been a winner over the years. Still, I would also recommend them in general. After all, I have a Corsair branded Seasoninc PW that runs, and runs, and runs... Other fine PW exist exist as well. That is why I posted links to current reviews, especially since not all PW's are available everywhere around the world.

An illuminating article on Who Is Who in the power supply game, though dated from 2013: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-oem-manufacturer,2913.html

 

[palombian]

Oops, I'm lucky my old Dell is still running with all the upgrades.

PSU rated 300W, I measure (with an ordinary energy consumption meter) 75W idle and peak 150W, power factor 0.70.
But temperature of exhaust air is just above room temp when idle, so I suppose it will not burn (I removed the side panel though ).
I am no gamer, only Lightroom, most of the time CPU is under 10%.

 

[The Hat]

Thanks for the good suggestions guys, it’s much appreciated.

That was a pretty good suggestion pointing to the power supply dough, I had already checked everything out including the power supply, but I over looked to mentioned that because it was not installed new, I also used an external power supply for a fortnight just to double check that possibility too.

While the current machine is about only 15 months old, the Power unit is 3 years old, so technically this power unit is practically new.

I use the high quality Corsair power supply units.
I have been completely trouble free for the past 5 days and counting..

 

[PeterBJ]

I have an Aldi/Medion laptop which was bought with Windows 7 32 bit preinstalled. It came with 3 years of warranty and after 3years and one month the harddisk broke down. The computer became more and more unreliable until it finally died. I reinstalled Windows 7 on another disk I had and everything was fine again.

I think your harddisk might be defective, you seem to have changed all hardware except the harddisk and power supply. My prime suspect is the harddisk.

I like Windows 7 very much and would not name it "Misery Edition II". But Windows Vista certainly deserves that nickname.

 

[The Hat]

Thank you @PeterBJ, I will certainly explore that suggestion further with interest, because the hard disks are the next thing on my list for upgrading..

I like Windows 7 very much and would not name it "Misery Edition II". But Windows Vista certainly deserves that nickname.

I got the complete opposite while using Vista, it ran for seven years without a blip and then decided to upgrade to Win 8 to give that a try, now it’s as good as Vista was..

 

[mikling]

Hat, you still spinning rust? About time to move to a SSD! at least for the OS!