This is really unfortunate… Today while playing Dungeonland on my expensive and only computer, it randomly crashed hard. Power went out on the PC completely. Upon trying to restart the system it fails. The light doesn't stay on for more than 4 seconds before going out. I've tried disconnecting all hardware and the same problem persists. I've tried plugging it into a different outlet (the outlets here suck) and still the same problem. When it fails to start up, it automatically attempts to start up again and again until i pull the plug.

This doesn't make any sense to me, 2 years of using this PC and not a single problem. Than today it does this to me?

It really sucks… and unfortunately it means i can't play any of my 100+ steam games and more importantly, i cannot work on my comp project either. This means i'm out of the competition, at least until i can get this fixed and i don't know how long it'll be until I can get it fixed if i even can.

The distributor i bought it from has a 3 year warranty so i should be able to get whatever compotent is broken, replaced without any cost. However their tech support is closed on the weekends so i'll have to wait until Monday to call them. I could also try going to a computer repair shop but that would cost me money and could alter my warranty as well. So i'll wait until Monday to see if I can get any tech support. If that doesn't work i'll have to go to a repair shop or start replacing parts myself until i can find what's wrong with it.

As usual it's probably the motherboard. it almost always is.

This is just my luck too, i was really satisfied with my comp project too, i felt like it could have placed pretty well when finished. If i get lucky, maybe i'll only lose a week or two and get this thing fixed quickly. Otherwise i might not be able to complete it.

I'm typing this on my girlfriend's laptop which i can't use all the time. It is possible i could try to start a new project on here but with this thing's extremely weak specs i won't be able to work on a 3D game most likely. If i do decide to start anew, it would probably be a smaller 2D project much like the one i entered in the last S4D i participated in.

Update Sept 16 2013:

Well i got bored today with nothing to do so i decided to open up the system and see what i can do. I called techsupport and they told me to do the Paper Clip test, i thought that was useless since all it tests for is if the case fan will run and since i don't have a case fan i didn't bother with it. So then they said to start taking out hardware and see if it won't start due to a faulty piece of hardware. My first instinct was to go for the Graphics card, so i unplugged it and hit the power button and it started up.

I wasn't happy at all though, right away i knew what this meant, my GPU is dead and only after less than 2 years of use. Replacing this card isn't going to be cheap either, oh and to make matters worse, this shitty card decided to take out my HDD along with it. When i try to boot it says to insert a bootable drive, it seems to be able to detect that my HDD exists but it can't boot from it, so it's probably corrupted which means i can't boot Windows and i can't access any of my files. I also didn't get a f***ing windows DVD with this PC either so if i want Windows i'll have to buy Windows again! F*** you Microsoft!

So i am in the process installing Ubuntu to a flash drive and i'm going to see if i can get it to boot that. Only problem is… i can't find my USB drive…

Update 2:

Currently I got Windows XP booted from Hiren's BootCD. It seems to be running fine but it cannot detect my HDD so i can't see if it's corrupted, bad sectors, or anything about it yet. I imagine this is a problem with XP not being compatible with this fairly new HDD. So running XP isn't really a good option for me it would seem. I can't run any sort of recovery programs for my HDD if XP cannot detect it!

Update 3:

Well the issue maybe the PSU after all. I wasn't having problems booting from the CD drive but it appears that i do now. After shutting it off and attempting to reboot, it is looping once again. So my conclusion is that it has to be the PSU. The motherboard was fine, it managed to run the bios on a previous attempt, and the CD drive was reading a disc. RAM cards were working as well. The GPU remains unplugged, yet it won't start again.

I'm thinking it wasn't booting from the HDD because the HDD isn't receiving enough power to run and since it won't boot again the power supply must be really screwed now.

But what i don't get, is how it still managed to boot up for me and load from the disc. Can a faulty PSU gives such unpredictable results such as powering the system for almost a full hour and then cease to boot again? Or is it a motherboard problem?

My previous machine actually had a similar problem, it would take numerous tries to get the system running, my gf took it to repair shops and they seemed convinced it was a bad motherboard. However the startup process was a bit different. When i attempt to turn that machine on, it would startup with the lights on but no video output would ever happen, so the motherboard failed to load up the bios correctly i assume and it wouldn't power down until i pressed the button. However with my current PC it doesn't stay powered, it shuts itself down before the bios shows up and than automatically attempts to restart infinitely.

Also calling the techsupport from the manufacturers I get the general feeling that they might not be willing to replace any parts at all. The warranty states that it doesn't cover hardware failures that occur after 1 year. So it's up to me to determine which part really needs to be replaced and to pay for the replacement. A PSU isn't easy to replace either, so many cables in here and they're f***ing ziptied together too. Gonna take some work getting this damn thing out. I would like to test each connector too but i don't have the equipment for that either.