Hi guys,

Weird things happening lately with my PC. The computer will shutdown occassionally for no apparent reason and the monitor often loses the signal.

However, jiggling ANY of the cords on the back of the tower eventually makes the monitor turn back on (jiggling the cords, ANY CORD, will also make the monitor turn off).

I have:

- tried a different monitor
- tried a different video card
- tried a different cable

I'm wondering if the motherboard or something hasn't started to pack it in....a few days ago the date reset itself to 1 Jan 2003, but i hasn't done it again since I changed it back so the battery is probably ok.

Any ideas???

well jiggling cables and having your computer respond that way would suggest to me that there is a short somewhere. i would try working with each individual cable in the back, while trying as best you can to not move any of the others. i bet there is one that you keep moving while you move the others.
also, when your monitor loses signal, are you sure that the PC actually shuts down? do you see it actually power off? it could just be a faulty video card. it can be a variety of issues really. process of elimination

Power-supply is another possibility

First though-- if "jiggling things" shuts down the monitor--
I would open the case and check all the PCI cards for proper seating
also the RAM.

If that's all OK-- i would download Speedfan-- check your temps
check your voltages for your PSU.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have stripped and alternated the cables but it doesn't make a difference. It seems to be more the pressure on the board rather than the actual jiggling of cables that makes the monitor lose/gain signal. I have also tried using a PCI slot video card as well as the onboard video card but that doesn't make a difference. I took out all the cards and reseated them as well.

Just a clarification: the computer doesn't shutdown when the monitor loses signal. The random shutdowns have been happening in addition to the monitor problem. One time I got a blue screen....the error message said something like "if this is the first time you have received this message, reboot and try again....otherwise you're screwed".

Here's the report from Hardware Monitor....


Hardware Monitor 1.0.6.0
-----------------------------------------------------
Mainboard Vendor Hewlett-Packard
Mainboard Model HP System Board (0x545 - 0xC5D29728)
LPCIO
-----------------------------------------------------
Vendor ITE
Model IT8705
Vendor ID 0x90
Chip ID 0x8705
Revision ID 0x2
Config Mode I/O address 0x2E
Dump config mode register space, LDN = 0x4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20 87 05 02 00 79 00 00 00 00 00 04 04 04 04 00 00
30 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
50 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
60 02 90 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
70 00 02 00 00 04 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------
ITE IT87 hardware monitor
Voltage sensor 0 1.41 Volts [0x58] (CPU VCORE)
Voltage sensor 1 1.81 Volts [0x71] (VIN1)
Voltage sensor 2 3.31 Volts [0xCF] (+3.3V)
Voltage sensor 3 5.11 Volts [0xBE] (+5V)
Voltage sensor 4 11.84 Volts [0xB9] (+12V)
Voltage sensor 5 -13.44 Volts [0xD2] (-12V)
Voltage sensor 6 -4.10 Volts [0x40] (-5V)
Voltage sensor 7 4.87 Volts [0xB5] (+5V VCCH)
Voltage sensor 8 2.03 Volts [0x7F] (VBAT)
Temperature sensor 0 48°C (118°F) [0x30] (TMPIN0)
Temperature sensor 1 36°C (96°F) [0x24] (TMPIN1)
Temperature sensor 2 -54°C (-66°F) [0xC9] (TMPIN2)
Fan sensor 0 1577 RPM [0x6B] (FANIN0)
Fan sensor 1 1188 RPM [0x8E] (FANIN1)
Dump hardware monitor
LPC Register space, base address = 0x0290
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
00 13 00 FF 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 5B 00 6C 8E FF
10 FF FF FF 37 80 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20 59 71 CF BE B9 D2 40 B5 7F 30 24 C9 00 00 00 00
30 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
40 3C 00 4B 7F 4B 7F 00 00 2D 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
50 FF 31 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00 90 63 02 00 80 00 00 00
60 7F 7F 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00 7F 7F 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00
70 7F 7F 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
80 13 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 5B 00 6C 8E FF
90 FF FF FF 37 80 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
A0 59 71 CF BE B9 D2 40 B5 7F 30 24 C9 00 00 00 00
B0 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
C0 3C 00 4B 7F 4B 7F 00 00 2D 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
D0 FF 31 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00 90 63 02 00 80 00 00 00
E0 7F 7F 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00 7F 7F 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00
F0 7F 7F 7F 7F 7F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------
Maxtor 6Y080L0 hardware monitor
Temperature sensor 0 43°C (109°F) [0x2B] (HDD)
Dump hardware monitor

Processors Map
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of processors 1
Number of threads 1
Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0

Processors Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 1 (max 1)
Number of threads 1 (max 1)
Name Intel Pentium 4
Codename Northwood
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
Package Socket 478 mPGA (platform ID = 2h)
CPUID F.2.7
Extended CPUID F.2
Brand ID 9
Core Stepping C1
Technology 0.13 um
Core Speed 2666.4 MHz (20.0 x 133.3 MHz)
Rated Bus speed 533.3 MHz
Stock frequency 2666 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2
L1 Data cache 8 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Trace cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative
L2 cache 512 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control no
Features

Thread dumps
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU Thread 0
APIC ID 0
Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 0, Thread ID 0
Type 01001001h
Max CPUID level 00000002h
Max CPUID ext. level 80000004h
Function eax ebx ecx edx
0x00000000 0x00000002 0x756E6547 0x6C65746E 0x49656E69
0x00000001 0x00000F27 0x00010809 0x00004400 0xBFEBFBFF
0x00000002 0x665B5101 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x007B7040
0x80000000 0x80000004 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
0x80000001 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
0x80000002 0x20202020 0x20202020 0x20202020 0x6E492020
0x80000003 0x286C6574 0x50202952 0x69746E65 0x52286D75
0x80000004 0x20342029 0x20555043 0x36362E32 0x007A4847
Cache descriptor Level 1 D 8 KB 1 threads
Cache descriptor Level 1 T 12 KB 1 threads
Cache descriptor Level 2 U 512 KB 1 threads
MSR 0x0000001B edx = 0x00000000 eax = 0xFEE00900
MSR 0x00000017 edx = 0x000A0000 eax = 0x00000000
MSR 0x0000002C edx = 0x00000000 eax = 0x14110014
MSR 0x000001A0 edx = 0x00000000 eax = 0x00000081

Drive
-----------------------------------------------------
Name Maxtor 6Y080L0
Drive
-----------------------------------------------------
Name WDC WD400BB-00DEA0