My computer is going on 4 years old now, and after going home for break I found it would shut down seconds after turning on. My friend thought it was a short, which made sense to me. After unplugging and replugging everything and reseating my ram, pci, etc, the computer worked fine. I just got back to college yesterday, and the same thing has happened, except reseating and replugging have failed to fix the problem. I started selectively unplugging and found that the computer stays on when the 8 pin eps connector is not plugged in, but turns off immediately when it is.

I'm running out of ideas and I'm really hoping I don't have hardware problems.

Power supply unit. Sounds like its failing and the extra power draw is causing it to shut down.

Either that, or there is a short withe the connector on the mobo, but really sounds like psu issue.

Although, I'm actually surprised it boots without the eps power plugged in

It doesnt boot, it turns the fans, harddrives, lets me open cd drives, etc. I had a friend come over, and then it mysteriously started working. I can only imagine it was a short or something that got fixed when I moved it around.

Thx for the suggestions.