Hey everyone, I've got a strange situation on my hands here. My dad's computer has been powering up, staying on for about 5 seconds, and then powering down. This started after he accidentally built up static electricity and "shocked" the computer to life. There was an arc from his finger to the power switch and it powered on successfully after that. I have some experience with hardware and diagnosing problems so I assumed it was the power supply that was causing the issue. I had the same thing happen to me about two months ago, and the power supply was at fault. I switched out the power supply with an old one that I knew worked, and the computer still wouldn't boot. Here's where it gets strange. I left the working PSU in the computer, and reseated the RAM. The computer booted up fine after re-seating the RAM and leaving only one stick in the computer. Deciding the RAM must be at fault, I put the old PSU in and tried it out. The computer wouldn't boot up. So I threw the working one back in, and tried powering it on. I got nothing. Not really knowing where to go next, I removed the one stick of RAM and put the other one in. This time, it booted. I powered down, put the other stick in as well, and it booted up again fine. I figured my problem was solved, so I reconnected everything (I had the floppy drive and zip drive disconnected). I tried turning it on again and I got nothing. I was really feeling lost now, so I just started checking all of my connections. I randomly decided to disconnect the zip drive, and it booted. I powered down, and it wouldn't boot. Can you see the recurring trend here? It seems to only power up at random. My dad is an electrician, so he keeps asking me about what components draw voltage from where and all sorts of other stuff I don't really understand. He tested the power supply that was originally in the computer and said it tested out fine. He also tested the switch on the front of the computer and said it's operating fine too. I'm not really sure what to tell him now. Any ideas on what might be causing the issue here? Thanks, and sorry for writing a novel as my first post! -Zach
