Moved from UK to Canada and computer didn't survive the shipping (sometimes boots all the way, mostly restarts without BSOD)

[timjchild]

So I just moved from the UK to Canada, and sent my computer in a shipping container fairly well wrapped up (although not 100% airtight, and not 100% knock proof). On arrival, it booted to the login screen fine the first time, then restarted without a BSOD after logging in. Sometimes it would then get back to the login screen, but more frequently it would begin to reboot faster and faster or even lock up the initial mobo splash screen.

I tried quite a few things before deciding that the motherboard was probably the culprit, so I have replaced that. And still no luck. That also rules out overheating due to heatsink being loose (I have checked temps and they stay below 40, although I have noticed readings all the way down to 16 on the rare occasions that I can login and run speccy).
I have 4 sticks of ram, so I have been trying them individually in different slots, and that doesn't seem to make a difference. I only have an SSD connected which is fairly new, so I can't imagine how that could have been damaged. I'm a bit stuck.

Specs are:
AMD FX 6300
ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
2x 4gb Patriot memory 1600mhz
2x 4gb unknown 1600mhz
Powercool X-Viper 450w 80+ bronze psu
128Gb sandisk ssd 6G/s
HD7770 Graphics card
Sythe Katana cooler

I'm pretty confident heat isn't the problem. Unfortunately there are no inbuilt graphics, and like I said, the motherboard has been replaced with a brand new one, and the problem is exactly the same. Everything worked perfectly before being moved.

There is no voltage switch on the back of the PSU and it says that it works from 110 - 240V and 50/60Hz but could the change in voltage cause it a problem? I think that is next on my list of culprits.
I managed to run a 5 minute cpu test including prime95 etc which I stopped (maybe should have left that running longer but can't easily get back to it now as it keeps restarting so quickly). Oh also I tried a clean install, and that improved things (slightly higher chance of being able to login, but same problems in general).

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks
Tim

 

[Saga Lout]

My guess is if it was turned on for just a moment without altering the Voltage down to Canada's 120 from our 240, it would have been enought to mess things up. Replacing teh motherboard was a good start but the hard disk would also have struggled to work in those circumstances.

Are you seeing the BIOS screen at boottime? If so, the machine may well work properly but Windows cannot.

 

[timjchild]

Thanks for your reply.
Most of the time I can get to the bios screen. I like your idea, but I don't think it can be the ssd because the problem persists even when that is disconnected. I have tried running memtest x86, and sometimes I can start it running, but other times it will randomly hard reset within the first 5s. I have noticed one time when it consistently resets, which is when I try to boot the memtest in uefi mode, it does the pre checks for cpu type and memory type and size etc, but when it gets to 'testing multiprocessor support' it immediately crashes and takes a bit longer to start up again. I'm not sure if this is just a problem with the memtest application in uefi mode though.

I think it must be psu, ram, or cpu. But I'm not sure which is most likely. It couldn't be graphics could it? That would cause visual output problems, but not the hard resets right?

 

[Zerk2012]

Remove the memory and video card, unplug all power and SATA connectors and plug them back in, reinstall the video card and memory.

 

[timjchild]

I have already changed the motherboard, so everything has been unplugged and reconnected.

Update from this morning.
Computer had a ton of trouble getting to the bios screen, mostly restarting before the first beep from the motherboard. Did this maybe 15 times in a row.. Then just about got into bios before crashing. And after a few more attempts I managed to start to load the memtest, which crashed a split second into the test. Then after several more tries it seems to be doing the memory test completely stably. It has been running for 48 minutes now on all 6 cpu cores in parallel, and there have been no problems.

What is going on?!?

I have ordered a new psu, so I will try that tonight. But I still don't know if its that, ram, or cpu, or maybe even graphics. Nothing seems loose. Since it is stable now I have tapped and knocked as many components as I can with no effect.

Thanks for the responses so far.. Hopefully we'll make some progress today!

 

[timjchild]

Turned out to be a faulty power supply. There was no reason it shouldn't have worked, but replacing it fixed the problem! It was only about 2 years old, but I guess it didn't like the shift down to 120V despite being rated for it.

Thanks for the help anyway!