GFL my friends... GEE EFF ELL.

[Mr. C]

I'm a reasonably savvy person when it comes to computers. I'm no expert nor technician but I've been around them for a couple decades now so I'm usually able to solve my own issues. But this... this has me absolutely stumped.

The Machine is less than six months old and has been effectively stationary since I got it. It was not physically damaged in any way. This problem quite literally sprung up out of the blue.

Symptoms: Anywhere between immediately and an hour or so within startup computer will slow to a crawl, any web pages will "hang", computer will become unresponsive. My monitor only functions if I connect a second monitor which starts at bootup, allowing my primary monitor to startup with windows. Hang occurs even when disk is formatted and with only OEM windows installed. Crashes during Safe Mode. Crashes during Clean Boot. Ctrl-Alt-Del will produce "Preparing Security Options".

(edit: writing this on that machine so will be repeatedly editing to prevent total loss via crashes.)

Which is a good thing because it actually just crashed again.

Tests: I've run every single anti-virus program I can get my hands on. I've used every single hardware test I know of. I purchased PC Doctor specifically for this and it tells me everything passes as does every other test.

For the life of me I can't figure out what's wrong here..

[Kris_PCD]

Well, I am sorry to hear that you are having these problems and our software couldn't find anything. After taking all the testing you have performed and the issue you are seeing, the first thing that comes to mind is a possible power issue.

I know from personal experience that if your system is getting inconsistent power (from the Power Supply or from the wall doesn't really matter), it can wreak all kinds of havoc and be very difficult to identify as well. Not long ago my personal system would have all sorts of BSOD's (Blue Screen of Death), and all my initial troubleshooting pointed to either a driver or a memory issue. After repeatedly attempting to diagnose the hardware without success, and still having problems after trying different OSes (Windows and Linux) with different drivers. I finally determined it was the power supply that had failed, and after replacement it has been running like a champ.

Unfortunately there aren't any easy ways to diagnose a defective Power Supply(PSU), and if the problem only appears under load then a PSU tester you can buy over the counter will likely declare that everything is working fine. If possible I would recommend running the system with a different PSU that you know to work, and see if the issue continues.

I look forward to hearing your findings, and hope you are able to find a solution.

Thanks,
Kris