pc reboots if i touch the case

[bigmicka]

noticed this on my media server the other day.

touch the dvd drive and it would reboot.

thought it must have been the drive so i pulled it out. Booted up again touched the case in roughly the same spot and it rebooted again.

moving the case from side to side, reboots the machine. (just a couple of degrees one way or the other)

Is this a case, power supply, power cable or mobo not being earthed issue?

mic

[parallax1]

Maybe the board is grounding when you move it?

[Bjs]

Power cable = possible
Case = more related to buttons built into unit being a bit dodgy .
Psu = very rare .
Motherboard = possible , though highly unlikely given the cause .

Check for loose connected devices .

Where main board fits , check the adaption plate , to make sure those sprung fingers have not been bent incorrectly during installation , and coming into contact with mainboard , causing an earthing fault .

Check under mainboard for brass standoffs that should not have been installed ... may be cause .

Any device connected externally can cause same results ... remove these , bootup and see if it happens , if not , then external device was incorrectly earthed (poor quality) .

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Others depend on :

You have carpet in house ?
What is the unit sitting on ?

What material are you clothes made of , that you were wearing at the time .
What I mean ... Was there a small electric shock , similar to static discharge .

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I have only ever experieced this once before ... poor quality psu was fault , but should rule out all others as well .
A friends pc did the same thing ... bad power cord ... drove both of us nutts figuring out what was going on with it .

[overloaded_ide]

Check all your wires and connectors.

Although I never saw your exact problem I have seen many strange thing ssimilar that were connector or wire related.

Once I was fixing a friends system, they had it in the "REAL SHOP" several days at 2 different places.
It had an odd boot problem and sometimes just go dead after it booted and they were using it for awhile. I found a drive ribon cable cut inside that a "PRO" shop did not find! Simply replaced the drive cable and all was well.

You could just have a loose wire in a connector I've seen many strange things that way. Any little wiggle or shake makes it work, or if working can break it.

The case does not matter. You can run a system board outside a case, not good but I do it!
You have a power cable to the system board and a loose connection on a pin can cause a little jiggle to lose power. You also have a pin out on the board that goes to the power button on the case, if that button sticks it can cause a power down or sometimes a reboot.
If you have a reset button which most cases have that could be sticking a bit, a little jiggle or such could cause a reset which of course is reboot.
I would look above first for connection or button problems of this has been working.
Also a short between case and system board can cause reboot or even fry a board. I would check the connections first and then if needed remove the system board and check to see nothing is touching the case.
A droped in screw can case lots of problems.
OR, like I had an open case and wife piled up crap on the desk 6" high, her metal chip bag closer fell over into my open system once and fried the whole board!! That's why she no longer uses my desk!!!

[ZAPPER]

I admit that I don't know anything, but that never stops me from jumping in!

Just curious, How hard of a touch when you say just touching? Soft enough not to even move a hair or hard enough that there is possibly some movement of the PC or deflection in the case?

If there is a satic electricity discharge, you don't even have to make contact for the spark to jump. And other than proper grounding of the equipment I don't know what to tell you except don't touch the PC anymore!

If you are even slightly moving the PC, I would have to suspect the loose connection or broken wire situation. If the entire case rocked just a bit, I would be suspectiong a connection on the outside of the box. Interfaces are the most common failure, most likely the point where the cables internal wires attach to the cables pins or sockets and not nessasarely (SP) the actuctual cable to socket connection. (it has been my expeirence that the cables tend to fail before the connectors)


Starting on the outside of the box, do the cable wiggle thing and then proceed to checking the actual cable plug to socket/jack connections with the gentle touch and disconnect and reconnect. Once you are sure that it is not outside the box then start on the inside of the box doing basically the same thing. Checking wires and their connections. On the inside of the box you have the added possibility of a bad solder joint, harder to find, but more rare.

Being that you seem to think that you have associated the problem with the DVD drive maybe check that area first as far as wires and connections go. The deeper that you drill down the list of possible problems, the more fun trouble shooting becomes!


Me? I suspect a power cable connection. But I told you to start with that I don't know nothing!

[bigmicka]

Thanks for the info guys.

I dont get a static zap when I do it.

Zapper I'm talking about somewhere between move a hair and hard enough for possible movement of the pc.

First time I noticed it I had only just touched the drive, to try and press the button to open the tray. only very slight touch. Took my raid array and other devices off before trying it, and slight movement to slight rocking would make the thing reboot.

The PSU was replaced last year after i found some caps had gone.

Checked the connections at the back, will follow the recomendations above tomorrow morning.

mic

[t0nee1]

Just curious, but are you walking across a carpet before touching case,cuz i've had that happen where the static electricity discharges as you touch the case and reboots...I suspect either a faulty ground in PS or maybe bad system ground,or bad power/surge strip....

[EddyH]

Time to do the old "stripdown & piece-by-piece rebuild until it stops working" trick...

Might be a loose screw or other component in/on/under the PSU or motherboard... something else that's come unseated... bad cabling... etc. The two worst things would likely be something caught under the mobo shorting it (how long til it blows?), or trouble in the PSU (ditto!).

It'll be gory and a pain, but might be your best bet of diagnosing and fixing the problem... unhook everthing, take out all the cards, memory, etc (leave the cpu & its cooler! but check it's ALL properly seated..) lift the mobo out and check under it for any foreign objects or misplaced standoffs. That done, reseat it, and install only the power supply & minimal RAM (if the mobo has those handy D-LEDs that show basic system state), or PSU + RAM + video card and keyboard. Rock it about, stroke it, etc, see if it reboots.

If it still does at this stage, replace your PSU, use a different case (or no case at all), replace VGA, RAM or keyboard, etc til you find the culprit (might even be just a crap mobo, or one with the semi-recent "leaky capacitor" issue - I have had to junk a 2nd-gen Slot A board in the last couple months because of this or even a weak CPU that's burnt a transistor!).

If it's OK, keep adding more things til the trouble starts again... then whatever you changed last is the culprit.

The trouble might not even reappear, the mere act of unplugging and replugging something that was loose could fix it!

Good luck..

[TooLFooL]

don't touch it

[stiltman]

First time I noticed it I had only just touched the drive, to try and press the button to open the tray. only very slight touch. Took my raid array and other devices off before trying it, and slight movement to slight rocking would make the thing reboot.

Sounds like the MB grounding out, lose power connector, fraid wire inside

[bigmicka]

just an update on this.

After i took out the dvd burner which was a pioneer 110d the problem went away.

replaced with a 112 and no problem at all.

what i found funny though was that the problem occured even when the power and ide cable were disconnected. must have been how it was screwed into the case.

mic