boot up halts occassionally

[bt]

My 3 1/2 year old Gateway G5200 is occassionally halting at start up. During the boot I see it check the hard drive, then the slave drive, (I had added a second drive over a year ago) After the slave drive, it then looks at the cd and shuts down. Not all the time though. On a good boot by watching it close, I could see the step it halts at, I recognized it as the cd rom. I keep turning on the pc and it eventually will boot OK. The cd rom works find otherwise!

I cleaned up my start up. Renamed my autobat.exec / config.sys / winini. (not sure exactly what that complete file name was) as it recreated at the next start up. I still had it stop at boot.

Is there anything else I can check, or am I going to have to open it up "AGAIN" and check connections? What else when I have it opened?

Thank you so much for any advice!

[spaceAlien]

I had a similar problem on a 6-month old computer --
turned out to be a short in the wiring harness to the CD-ROM --

It was very difficult to see, because it didn't do a lot of damage --
only a very slight burn on one wire and the case --
which was hidden behind other wires.

The power supply was smart enough to recognize that it had a short --
and turn itself off

Take a very close look at all the wiring from the power supply

Try with the case in different positions or configurations

Try wiggling all wires and connectors

Later ...

[mjc]

Also look carefully at the wires where they bend around obstructions. On a 3+ year old computer I would also suspect a loose connection, so try reseating all the leads coming off the power supply. Do all this with the machine unplugged.



------------------
mjc