Eh, this probably isn't the best place to post a tech question, but here it goes anyway:

About a week ago, something happened (no, I have no idea what) and the UPS got fried and started leaking acid. Needless to say, the pc shut down immediately.

When I booted the pc up again, it was fine. A few days later, it randomly shut off on me. I tried booting it up, and the drive grinds away, but the monitor flashes the orange at me as though it is getting no signal from the pc (like it is in hibernate mode or something). I try booting it a few more times, making sure all cables are secure etc, and then it works again for an entire day without problems and I assume everything is okie dokie.

But it ain't! Now the monitor doesn't register, the cd drives work sometimes, and if I wriggle the cable and smooth it out, the hard drive will boot a little bit. It's not the video card, because I placed a perfectly good vid card in it, and it didnt' work either. The cable from the HD to the Mobo has a tiny hole in it, but that had ALWAYS been there. Even so, I tried swapping the ide cable with a brand new one and it still won't grind like it should. I may have altered the order the drives are all placed, but I don't believe that has any affect because they are not set to 'cable select' mode and that shouldn't have anything to d with this problem of no boot and/or no monitor.

So, in short, the monitor, which is plugged into the wall, HAS power, but flashes orange instead of green and there is no picture. The HD does not churn sometimes, but does other times, but the monitor isn't working any of those times.

The monitor IS still good because I tried swapping it with another working monitor, and the other didn't work either.

I BELIEVE the HD is still perfectly fine as I had it up and running last night and all day yesterday.

Also, I actually got it to boot today. The tower was open and on its side. While it was on, I VERY GENTLY lifted the twer up about an inch to set it vertical, and the comp reset and wouldn' boot again.

I am hoping something is just loose, but I am thinking maybe power supply or mother board, but I really have no real tech training other than years at home and building and maintaining my own comps. But I have never encountered a problem like this.

For a few obvious reasons, I don't want my drive being handled by some shop guy.

ANY IDEAS??????

thank you all in advance

B