why will system boot lying down and not upright???

[UCLAPat]

Okay, I have a question for you guys out there and it's driving me crazy.

I have a self-built system that's been running reliably for quite some time (AthlonXP 2200+, Nforce2, ATi 9600). I had a Seagate 80GB drive and decided to add a brand new Maxtor 120GB drive.

Well, I took out the drive cage on my Antec case and plugged in the drive (did a Ghost copy of all the partitions from the first drive to the new drive and made the old drive the slave with the new drive being the master).

Well, I place the midtower upright and go to boot. And I can't even post to BIOS. The two CD-ROM drives (actually, 1 DVD-ROM and 1 DVD-R drive) are alternatively blinking. There's no video. The HD's aren't booting to OS.

So I place the tower on its side. And I can boot up to WinXP and everything's fine. So I shut down and then stand the system upright and I can't boot anymore.

So I'm thinking something must be shorting or something. So I made sure all the screws were tightly screwed and that nothing weird was touching. I bundled the PSU cables together and made sure they weren't touching anything. I tried booting with the drive cage out of the system (seeing if the orientation of the HD's made a difference and it didn't).

But the system refuses to boot standing up, and will continue to function properly when the system is lying down. It is driving me crazy!!!

Ugh, I don't want to have to tear my system apart and rebuild... Any help would be very much appreciated...

 

[shadowfaX]

silly question for me to ask... but you have all your cards and stuff seated firmly, fans attached firmly, peripheral connectors attached firmly, etc.?

 

[wnied]

check to be sure your motherboard screws are all in nice and snug. I know it sounds crazy, but you'd be surprised how many times I've helped friends whove built their own systems and it was something as simple as they didnt properly tighten motherboard screws. Also check your power supply plugs to see if theyre seated nice and snug.

~wnied~

 

[UCLAPat]

Originally posted by: shadowfaX
silly question for me to ask... but you have all your cards and stuff seated firmly, fans attached firmly, peripheral connectors attached firmly, etc.?

Well, there's only two seated cards: ATi 9600 and the firewire card that came with the Nforce2 MB and both seem to be seated fine (otherwise, it wouldn't boot period?).

There's one CPU fan (standard retail AMD HSF + 2200+). It still spins (even when the system is not booting).

Even if I disconnect all the drives (DVD, HD, etc.), it won't boot to BIOS when the system is upright, but will boot if lying down.

 

[UCLAPat]

Originally posted by: wnied
check to be sure your motherboard screws are all in nice and snug. I know it sounds crazy, but you'd be surprised how many times I've helped friends whove built their own systems and it was something as simple as they didnt properly tighten motherboard screws. Also check your power supply plugs to see if theyre seated nice and snug.

~wnied~

Well, I'll try again. I'll remove all MB screws and reattach them because they were tightened. And I'll unplug the PSU from the MB and then reattach...

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: UCLAPat

Originally posted by: wnied
check to be sure your motherboard screws are all in nice and snug. I know it sounds crazy, but you'd be surprised how many times I've helped friends whove built their own systems and it was something as simple as they didnt properly tighten motherboard screws. Also check your power supply plugs to see if theyre seated nice and snug.

~wnied~

Well, I'll try again. I'll remove all MB screws and reattach them because they were tightened. And I'll unplug the PSU from the MB and then reattach...

your case flexes and when lying down on the side relaxes the binding/etc. ..so far you are lucky..I'd pull all components out of the case..reassemble out of the case..test for function then carefully reassemble back into said case..checking things as to securement,proper fit(memory, hsf and cpu,etc.) and dbl checking as I go. gl

 

[altonb1]

Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon

Originally posted by: UCLAPat

Originally posted by: wnied check to be sure your motherboard screws are all in nice and snug. I know it sounds crazy, but you'd be surprised how many times I've helped friends whove built their own systems and it was something as simple as they didnt properly tighten motherboard screws. Also check your power supply plugs to see if theyre seated nice and snug. ~wnied~

Well, I'll try again. I'll remove all MB screws and reattach them because they were tightened. And I'll unplug the PSU from the MB and then reattach...

your case flexes and when lying down on the side relaxes the binding/etc. ..so far you are lucky..I'd pull all components out of the case..reassemble out of the case..test for function then carefully reassemble back into said case..checking things as to securement,proper fit(memory, hsf and cpu,etc.) and dbl checking as I go. gl

Could also be that your case is actually shorting something out when you have it positioned upright. Or...perhaps the mother board shifts just enough to short things out. I have actually seen a system not boot correctly because the screws were TOO tight and it was shortening things out. Good luck!