okay, my machine turns on automaticaly every day. the past few days, ive come home and found it off. and its the kind of "off" that requires you to turn it off from theback, wait for the green led to quit flashing and turn it back on.
it started doing this 2 days ago, and now the HDD dosent even spin up fully before the thing shuts off. the only time ive seen my computer turn off like that is if the power blinks. i think its a feature in my overpriced thermaltake powersupply i bought 2 or 3 years ago. none of the fan wires or power button wires are bare or even touching the case. any ideas would be nice, cause i cant even get the thing on long enough to check my email.

Have you considered trying another PSU?

This would be my first choice... Replace the power supply

okay, so i took out the psu and heres what i found







so either the psu started to put out to much power, or the motherboard resisted the power. the video cardstill works, i just thought tht the paint flaking off like that was odd. since the card is only 6 months old...
if you cant see it look at the lower right corner (where the power conector is sodiered through) and the flaking around the lower center (the shape of an SD memory card)

should i attempt to yank my psu out of my other box or should i get all my good componets out and look for a new board?

Your motherboard is probably fried, it's not the power supplies fault. The power supply was just supplying the power that the "sick" motherboard required. Because the ATX connector of the power supply has burned pins, the PSU needs to be replaced also

can i just cut and replace the plug? this was a 80 dollar psu and id hate to just chuck it. and your saying the motherboard is fried, so even though it still logs into windows it is drawing the wrong amount of power because its sick?

the board was 160 and everything in it is high end and was installed right (ran 3 years without a glitch) and iv never heard/seen anything like this before, even on my old old computers.

but if it is fried, could it have hurt my video card or worse, my processor/memory?

i wonder if msi/ thermaltake has any kind of warranty, cause i cant afford to build my new intel system yet...

You can repalce the ATX power plug but you will have to check the motherboard mating pins. Maybe you can carefully resolder the motherboard side of the ATX pins. Make sure you clean the pins as good as possible. Heat corrosion can cause a bad connection and this will burn the pins again... If this burning continues you will have no choice but to replace the motherboard.

The video card, processor and memory should be ok. All this may have been caused by faulty solder connections on the motherboards ATX connector only

okay, i take it im out my 1200 dollar machine lol

ill just put my radeon and a 512 stick of memory into my asus a7n8x board and hope for the best.

i do highly doubt it will render my 3ds max project that i need done by the fifth, lol. ohwell, its only school...

last question, for a new build, would you go for the intel dual core (probably quad by the time i build one in spring) or amd dual core?

also, who is a brand name board that has best quality right out of the box, theres like 50585844 brands on newegg for socket 754 (which i more than buying a dual core processor and board)