AN52 motherboard stops a few seconds into startup

[escondidojim]

Hello,
I have a system that I built in 2007:
AN52 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core processor.

This system ran fine and continuously for several years. Then I ran it only occasionaly to do file backups.

Want to use it now but it only starts intermittently. Most of the time when I push the power switch it starts to spin up the hard drive and fans for maybe a second or two then shuts down. In order to get it to even do that much again I have to unplug it for a few seconds.

Is this likely a power supply problem? It has a lot of hours on it. How would I test that?

If not, where should I be looking?

Thanks.

Jim

 

[escondidojim]

OK, too general a question I guess.

I found the Perform These Test System won't boot in the NewBuild forum. Went through most of them but dont' think I'll find anything since the system ran fine for a long time.

Tomorrow I may pull the PSU out of an older Dell system and see if that fixes the problem.

Right now I am thinking that if I do get the system up and running on one of my random attempts, I just won't turn the bloody thing off again as I am definitely in over my head here.

I was a Windows MFC programmer for years but I know just about nothing about hardware. Frankly, it amazes me that I built this system and got it to run at all.