Random Shut Down Often Requires Rocking Cabinet

[buckhogger]

I Have Read Numerous Other Entries Of Similar Problems.
I Have An E-machines Desktop. This Unit Is Refurbished. The Problem Started When I First Got It - I Sent It Back - They Replaced The Modem. It Worked Fine For 2 Months. Same Problem Ocurred
Thinking I Had Learned Something, I Replaced The Modem With A Name Brand. Again The Problem Subsided About 3 Weeks.

The Random Shut Downs Usualy Require Only A Light Rocking Of The Cabinet To Start Up Again. Sometimes It Completely Reboots, And Requires Reactivation Of Active Desk Top, Other Times It Just Starts As If Coming Out Of Hibernation (windows Xp). Sometimes On The First Start Up Of The Day I Need To Rock It To Get It To Start.

Do Any Of You Suspect A Bad Hard Drive? Would A Bad Psu Have Symptoms Requiring "the Rocking Action" ? When It Is Running it often runs Several Hours With No Problems, or it may fail in the first 5 to 15 minutes

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Open your PC up and reseat every PCI/AGP card. Reseat your Memory stick(s).
Check all cables between motherboard and drives and pront-panel-switches.
Check all cables between powersupply and drives.
Check the power-cable and its plug. Check all keyboard/monitor/mouse/internet/modem cables.
Check that all the fans are working properly, and that the cooler is properly mounted on the CPU.

 

[buckhogger]

Thanks for the feedback. I have tried all the connections, I'll try once again.
Do you think a hard drive could "hang-up" at random and cause this problem ?
Could a cooling faN "HANG-UP" AND CAUSE THE PROBLEM ? oTHER THAN THE LOOSE COnnection theory what is your next best guess ?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

My next best guess is the crap quality of the E-Machine.
Check the mobo and CPU temperatures, maybe your powersupply is on the blink (very possible with that cheap brand).