Incomplete boot

[hubmub]

Power outage the other day, and since then the PC won't finish a boot all the time. If it does come up (in either safe mode or regular) then it will just spontaneously turn off whenever (to standby according to the light).

I've unhooked pieces one at a time, and the same thing happens regardless. I've changed the switch to no avail. At this point, $$ is required to continue testing.

Power supply?
Motherboard?
CPU?
RAM?

Any ideas would be helpful, I have no testing equipment nor do I intend to purchase any.

HP Pavilion 532w (Don't bother with a lecture!)

[meese]

Was your pc on when the power went out? Are you sure its a hardware problem or could it be a software problem?

[hubmub]

PC was on when the power went out. Wouldn't a software issue be more predictable? This happens sometimes at the Windows XP screen, and sometimes after a few minutes of trouble-free computing.

[meese]

Screwed up this post.

[meese]

The first thing I would suspect after a power outage would be a software problem. Its not uncommon for sudden loss of power to corrupt an OS. Thats why you "shut down" the pc and don't just turn it off.

Check the event logs for any warnings or errors and post them here.