Strange puter behavior yesterday...

Folks,

I hope this is in the correct forum. Didn't know where else to post it. Anyway, we had a few momentary AC power outage blips yesterday. Three or four in quick succession. I was in the living room when it happened. When I got back to the puter, the mouse cursor was frozen.

Figured oh well, the power blips prob'ly caused it. Just restart. But it wouldn't restart. I tried the power button on the front but it didn't do anything. So I pressed the little reset button and that restarted it.

Here's the weird part. It would get booted up and about a minute later the cursor would freeze again. I reset the darn thing three times and every time it was the same. The cursor would move like always until a minute or so and it would freeze. The whole machine would freeze.

Then I tried the main power switch on the back. Same result.

Shirl suggested unplugging the AC cord for a minute and see if that works. She was right. Puter booted up and has been working fine ever since.

It's got me buffaloed. Anyone have any ideas as to why?

something like Gray noise or static build up in the line you had to disconnect to release the static. It happens with Vonage on occasion.

There also could have been some minor damage to the hard drive too.... I killed a drive at a show but the music kept playing.... when I got home I had to re-load my C drive thank god I didn't trash my music drive....

Mine was a result of my big clumsy feet jerking the dang powercord from the wall several times while the drive was spinning.

If you want the techo doohickey details, it works something like this...


When a computer boots up, it first loads the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). It talks to all the hardware. The OS talks to it.

It resides in RAM, and is a very small semi-protected kernel. If it gets corrupted for some reason (power flux could easily do that), it will cease to function properly, if at all.

So, it freaked, and you flipped the switch. Chips are probably warm, so they will hold a charge for a bit (remember, they work electro-magnetically). Restart, and same thing, because there wasn't enough time to clear memory that might not be used exactly at the moment of boot up, but will be needed soon, and is still corrupted.


By giving them a few moments to cool down, they can all reset back to their natural state, lose their excited characteristics, and are cleared.


Something to that effect... :)

Thanks, Rick. That sounds about right. Makes sense.

When I was resetting it, I didn't allow no cool down time. When I pulled the AC plug I left it to set for a couple minutes before trying it again. That was the last option and I was pretty much fustrated by then anyhow, lol. :)

oh yeah right since he knew all the techie Jargon he gets the Gold Star. I say the same thing in Luddite terms and get a Wolfie thank you lol. Thanks Rick for the real scoop.

oh yeah right since he knew all the techie Jargon he gets the Gold Star. I say the same thing in Luddite terms and get a Wolfie thank you lol. Thanks Rick for the real scoop.


hahahaha guess you know your place....:spwink:

had an issue similar on my old xp system at the office, I affectionately name it the "bread and butter"

it would freeze before it would log onto a user, usually after 30 seconds. Worked fine in safe mode. Reseated cards, sys restore, nothing worked. I eventually yanked the dvd writer which was on sale for 40 bucks at the time when dvd writers were still pricy. None the less it finally gave out I assume. Solved that problem.

Word of advice: Backup backup backup!

I've had to reseat a video card after the same situation....multiple surges/on and off power outages.....