I have been working on a friends hp pavilion sometimes when you plug it in all it will do is sit there and the fan run on the power supply and it will not come on unless you smack it, i've taken it apart and cleaned it and made sure everything was seated properly but if i leave it plugged in in it comes on in the middle of the night, I checked the bios for the advanced power settings and they are disabled. The other thing that is wrong is when it boots up the msn sign on comes up and if you try to close it half of it stays on the screen, i have used several different diagnostic utilities and they say there are no problems, my system suite did find some bad sectors on the hard drive after taking all night to do a surface scan.
Please help
Ed

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HP Pavilion ehh as I recall it has a strange power supply as far as connections go. Might be model specific however. When it will not start up does the light on the front flash on and off slowly? Generally that is an over current condition. HP supplies are underpowered by normal standards and don't do well under stress.

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she did add a burner recently maybe that could be it but i when it does sit there and run the orange light comes on but not the green light, the orange light is the hard drive led. i can't get why the darn thing will come on in the middle of the night by itself, I think this thing is possessed.

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reduce your power needs and see if that helps.

disconnect CD-ROMS, sound cards and any other non necessary items.

it sounds like a power problem that may have a intermittent reset problem.

ive seen stuff like this, but usually it will power on after 5-10 min. in the middle of the night does sound spooky...

how long is the computer off when you have these startup problems?

she doesnt live in an older home maybe where the wiring might be suspect?

i once had problems with a friends computer and eventually found out that they were getting low voltage from the wall. they were in a trailer park that was old and had problems with flourescents not coming on right aways and lights burning out a lot.

although it was noticable 15 years ago, you shouldnt see any dimming of the lights when powering up a vaccuum cleaner or any other high draw appliances. if you do, you might want to look at how your circuits are arranged.

usually a wall plug will be connected in series with several other plugs (usually 10 sockets or light circuits is the rule) if you have a lot a draw on a circuit, that might play a part in it too. look at things like where a 300 watt halogen is plugged in at or space heaters, etc.

something to try if you have one handy, is try plugging it into a UPS for a few days and see what it does.

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it comes on in the middle of the night at my house on an apc backup my house wiring is not that old. it stays on until you shut it off.

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weeell...my cousin had a tv that frequently would come on in the middle of the night.

they got to the point where they would remove the batteries from the remote at night.

it probably wouldna been so bad except that when it did this it always came on at full volume.

she eventually gave the tv to my brother and my brother's only problem was sometimes you had to hit the power button a few times before it would stay on.

it would power up for a few seconds then shut off. so he would just keep hitting the on button till it stayed on. the tv lasted about 3 or 4 years after my brother got it.

my dad worked part time as a tv repairman for about 5 different shops when i was growing up and he never could find anything wrong with it.

maybe your computer is just one of those flaky electronic wonders...

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I don't know maybe your right i'm gonna try replacing the power supply and see if that helps, this thing is greatly underpowered anyway and i seen some 250 watt power supplies that would run a p-4 board and i've got a micro atx board on it's way to me.
Maybe with a different board and power supply this thing won't be able to be possessed.

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250 watts for a P-4 sounds low to me.

i have a 550 watt supply for my P-4

even Dell (the king of cheap parts) put a 300 watt supply in their near bottom of the line 2400's.

if Dell is using 300 then imho that is the lowest you can safely get away with because everything else in the system is marginal.

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I reached this and a 250 watt power supply is the biggest power supply that will fit in to this case. I relize it's very under powered, But these hpPavillion only came out with a 100 watt powers supply in them. If you know of a bigger power supply that will fit in this Micro ATX case. Pleas le t me know Thank you Ed

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actually i ran into this problem when trying to use an existing case for a P-4 upgrade.

there are PS that have higher wattages and only require that the tab in the back be bent out of the way.

iow, they are same height and width, but a little deeper than the micro PS. they will still take 4 mounting screws.

if doing this it might be a good idea to rig up some extra support for the PS. i have used zip ties before as a cheap solution. i try not to make any extra holes if i can. a couple zip ties around the wire bundle right out of the PS and to the case did the trick for me.

its been a few years since i needed one, but i am fairly sure that I got it from Antec.

or you can upgrade the case. that can be done for as little as 15. i suggest that you buy the case and PS separately. for some reason, case manufacturers charge a premium for a good PS even in a so-so case. i found it cheaper to go straight to the PS distributor and shop around for the best deal. pricewatch.com is good for this if you already know what you are looking for.

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