Computer only works in certain rooms - Power problem?

[MayflowerElectronics]

So, I built a little rig for my girlfriend so she can play games and for school.

 

Her computer will not boot into windows 7 in her room. It works in every room in her house, and my house with no problem.

 

The problem is that it will startup and start loading into windows 7, then at a certain point, the HDD activity light stops, and is just stuck at the loading screen of windows 7.

 

Problems I've tried

 

New power supply

new power supply cable

changing her socket

re-wiring her wires into her own fuse

general software cleanup

disk check

 

 

I am totally stuck. I feel this is a power issue seeing as there is literally no difference in her computer from room to house, but as soon as she uses her room it fails to load. Any suggestions?

[Lycr]

The problem could be located in the operating system, or with the HDD. I would almost certainly rule out a power problem as the computer is booting in the first place.

 

What I would do is replace the HDD with a known good one, and re-install the OS on that.

[MayflowerElectronics]

But why would it work only in certain rooms? That makes no sense.

 

She uses it all day at my house playing sims, typing papers. I've done a disk check and defrag, nothing was wrong.

[ARod]

Not sure if this applicable......but perhaps there is a lot of static in that room?  I had a client, very rich one, who wore leather bottom shoes and had wool carpet.  His office was  a nice once but it had the parking garage entrance to the building right below it.  So, there was a huge temperature differential between his office and what was directly below his feet on the other side.  As a result, he carried around a charge that was detrimental to electronics.  He literally ruined 3 of his VOIP phones just by picking up the handset before we realized what was going on.  

 

True story......seriously.

[tito]

Not sure if this applicable......but perhaps there is a lot of static in that room?  I had a client, very rich one, who wore leather bottom shoes and had wool carpet.  His office was  a nice once but it had the parking garage entrance to the building right below it.  So, there was a huge temperature differential between his office and what was directly below his feet on the other side.  As a result, he carried around a charge that was detrimental to electronics.  He literally ruined 3 of his VOIP phones just by picking up the handset before we realized what was going on.  

 

True story......seriously.

Uooo never imagine that could happen! Definitivly try to check this in her room, you dont wanna fry her new PC

[MayflowerElectronics]

What's funny is about 2 years ago or so when I built it, it worked fine with no problem. She has wood floors, and no leather shoes, static is not the problem. I still have not had time to run over and try my ITX gaming rig, i'll try that soon.

[Art Vandelay]

Try running an extension cord from another room to her room. You can figure out of it's the power socket or just a poltergeist this way. :P

[grayperview]

sounds like the PSU ain't getting enough juice from the wall, like Art said, run an extension cable from another room that you know it normally works in to test it.

To be on the safe side check the temps, could be her room is too warm...and the others are borderline...and you could have a thernal issue on your CPU...

[Jechu182]

Does the wall socket in her room have ground? I remember I had a similar problem. My old pc would never finish booting if the socket where I connected the PSU to didnt have that third connection to ground. Took me months to figure it out... 

[MayflowerElectronics]

We replaced the socket and we-wired the house to her room and shes on her own circuit breaker. 

[Quaker]

A little story....
Once a customer brought me a computer to fix because it would randomly shut itself off. A checked all the usual stuff and ran it overnight with no problems, so he took it back home. The next day, he called again because it still had the problem ... more tests, more time... eventually I had a flash of inspiration and asked him where the computer was located.
Bottom line, it turned out that the computer was located in his basement office and was plugged into the same outlet as his freezer. Freezer turns on, computer turns off. Cure - a power bar with a good spike suppressor. (Note though, that spike suppressors do wear out after X number of uses.)

In this case, there may be other devices on the same circuit as your GF's computer, that are causing powerline spikes and/or noise, or it could be bad wiring in the outlet. If a good noise suppressing power bar doesn't help, have an electrician check the wiring.

[Jebonia]

A little story....

Once a customer brought me a computer to fix because it would randomly shut itself off. A checked all the usual stuff and ran it overnight with no problems, so he took it back home. The next day, he called again because it still had the problem ... more tests, more time... eventually I had a flash of inspiration and asked him where the computer was located.

Bottom line, it turned out that the computer was located in his basement office and was plugged into the same outlet as his freezer. Freezer turns on, computer turns off. Cure - a power bar with a good spike suppressor. (Note though, that spike suppressors do wear out after X number of uses.)

In this case, there may be other devices on the same circuit as your GF's computer, that are causing powerline spikes and/or noise, or it could be bad wiring in the outlet. If a good noise suppressing power bar doesn't help, have an electrician check the wiring.

LOL hahaahaha love the signiture man. Is that supposed to be inspirational or troll-ish? hahaha

[IdeaStormer]

Other issue could be a badly grounded outlet. I once had a plumber do some work and he intentionally forgot to reconnect the ground to the house after he was done, needless to say the computer did not boot and went into a weird state. Luckily I quickly remembered that the plumber had disconnected the house ground during his work and quickly went to reconnect it and sure enough it was dangling, so I re-connected it and all returned to normal.

 

Also, if your outlet is all lose-y goose-y you are better off replacing it with a nice tight one that won't cause any residual arc's from a loose connection at the outlet.

[Patrick3D]

Rule out anything else that might be connected to the computer, it could be something as simple as a SD memory card in a printer, USB stick in a monitor, bad network cable (is it wired or wireless for Internet access?), etc... Also, buy an outlet tester from Home Depot/Lowes, they're ~$10 and will show if any of the wiring is bad or ground is bad.