Dead Computer

[BaldEagl]

I fired up my machine last night and it was acting strange.  The fans were turning themselves way up.  I shut it down and rebooted and all was normal.

Today I booted up and after a few minutes it shut down.  I hit the power switch and nothing.

I opened it up and laid it on it's side.  With the power turned on the motherboard lights come on but not the F code light.  If I unplug the power cord then plug it back in and hit the power switch the fans will start to spin up then stop.  Hitting the power switch again does nothing until I unplug and replug it then the fans will try to spin up again but stop when hitting the power.

I'm thinking dead motherboard rather than PSU but wanted a few more opinions.

[68valu]

just a guess, but I tend to agree it is probably the motherboard. Can you use another power supply just to test this out?

[BaldEagl]

More information.  Since I have to mess with it anyway I took the chance to clean all the fans and heatsinks then thought I try it again not expecting much.  When I hit the power switch the F code light does come on.  I almost got it to fire up this time and it let me try several times before I had to unplug it but along the way I heard a little noise that sounded like it was coming from the front of the case.  Now I'm wondering if the power switch is shorting.  It's the one place I haven't cleaned and dust may be shorting it.  I'm going to dig into that next and see what I find.

[BaldEagl]

So, I took the entire computer apart including taking off both side panals and the front panal and cleaned everything up then put the whole thing back together again.

Low and behold it booted up but was reporting the wrong memory settings then paused at a floppy disc fail warning.  I shut down and rebooted and this time it had the memory settings right but still gave me the floppy disc fail warning.  I jumped into the BIOS but everything looked ok so back to the POST screen.  Ignore the floppy warning and continue.  The machine booted up.  Of course it thought I had a bunch of new hardware since I probably moved the drive ports and USB cables around but it booted nonetheless and soon sorted itself out.

Then I remembered that I had failed to connect power to the floppy drive.  No biggie, I'll shut down and do that.  I did and now it won't start again.  I tried unplugging the floppy but that wasn't it.

So far an entire day wasted and I'm still where I was but at least there was a glimmer of hope for a moment.

[AAJagerX]

Just an opinion, but it really seems like your PSU is failing.  Do you have a multimeter handy to test it?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

So, I took the entire computer apart including taking off both side panals and the front panal and cleaned everything up then put the whole thing back together again.

Low and behold it booted up but was reporting the wrong memory settings then paused at a floppy disc fail warning.  I shut down and rebooted and this time it had the memory settings right but still gave me the floppy disc fail warning.  I jumped into the BIOS but everything looked ok so back to the POST screen.  Ignore the floppy warning and continue.  The machine booted up.  Of course it thought I had a bunch of new hardware since I probably moved the drive ports and USB cables around but it booted nonetheless and soon sorted itself out.

Then I remembered that I had failed to connect power to the floppy drive.  No biggie, I'll shut down and do that.  I did and now it won't start again.  I tried unplugging the floppy but that wasn't it.

So far an entire day wasted and I'm still where I was but at least there was a glimmer of hope for a moment.

I have one motherboard that sometimes does this and a cmos reset always brings it up again. It's Asus P5K board.

[BaldEagl]

I did some searching on the Internet last night and there seem to be a number of possible causes.

A CMOS reset by removing and replacing the battery seems to be the simplest potential solution and was mentioned by several.

A faulty/sticking on/off switch is probably the next simplest although it seemed to function normally when I had the front panal off yesterday.

The most likely and the one that's seemed to correct the issue for most people is replacing the PSU.  Yes I do have a multi-meter.  I have a hard time believing my 3 year old PCP&C PSU bit it.  It may or may not be under warranty.  If it was manufactured at the time I bought it's under a five year warrantee, if it was manufactured 4 months earlier it's only under a three year warrantee and would be out of warrantee.  I'll test it and check the manufacturing date which is part of the serial number.

A short circuit in another component.

The motherboard.  This is under a lifetime warranty from EVGA.

Sounds like I've got a fair amount of work to do.  Since I lost yesterday I may not be able to get back to it until next week but I'm sure I'll try to get to it sooner.

Thanks for the tips.

[Zeagle]

I would try replacing the PSU. Also, re-racking the components doesn't hurt either.

If that doesn't work, start thinking MB.

[AAJagerX]

The most likely and the one that's seemed to correct the issue for most people is replacing the PSU.  Yes I do have a multi-meter.  I have a hard time believing my 3 year old PCP&C PSU bit it.  It may or may not be under warranty.  If it was manufactured at the time I bought it's under a five year warrantee, if it was manufactured 4 months earlier it's only under a three year warrantee and would be out of warrantee.  I'll test it and check the manufacturing date which is part of the serial number.

I've had (supposed) high quality PSU's fail in less than a year before.  Sometimes things just break.  What makes me think it's the PSU rather than anything else is that you can unplug the power cord and get the fans to start again (then stop).  I had the exact same issue with one of mine, only this PSU was a cheaper one that came with an older gateway.  The best way IMO to tell (aside from replacing the PSU) is to test the voltages across the 24 pin connector.  If anything isn't at the proper voltage, trash the PSU.  Good luck.

[BaldEagl]

Yeah, I'm pretty much thinking it's the PSU at this point too but I wont get a chance to pull it out until Thursday night.  Then I'll be able to tell by the serial number if it's still under warranty or not.  Even if it is I might buy another and then I'll have a spare, otherwise I'm dead in the water for I'd guess at least a few weeks.   

[wngover]

Had the same issues.  Pulled the PSU and replaced with a more powerful unit (750 -> 950).  Everything work fine again.  I believe I read on the "internet" that PSUs tend to become less efficient overtime.   Thus if you are near the max draw on your PSU, the shorter the life of the PSU.

Here is a calc to check your numbers on:

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

[BoilerDown]

I agree that it sounds like the power supply.  I would try disconnecting anything you don't actually need, as you said without the floppy drive it worked better.  So disconnect the optical drives and spare data hard drives, if any.  If it works better yet again, that's more evidence towards the power supply being unable to handle what it once could.  Still, it might be something else and that would be real hard to determine for certain without replacing the power supply and seeing if your troubles go away.

[TequilaChaser]

  I have a hard time believing my 3 year old PCP&C PSU bit it.

It is under warranty .... they come with either a 5 year or 7 year warranty........

believe it that the highly praised PC Power and cooling PSU might be dead or dieing.......

I got a 5 yr old 750 watt that lost the 4 pin/8 pin 12volt plugs sitting here..... and I got a brand new 950 watt, that has 2 popped caps in it....... that burnt the 1st time I started the new build up.....

PC P & C can kiss my ***........ am done with them from here on out.........


good luck BE, hope you get ya PC fixed


TC

[ink]

strange I had almost the same exact symptoms in my system....thought it was the PSU went out got a new one installed it, same thing happening, so while I was tinkering with the components, I happen to see a sata cable connection was broke, where it connects to the drive, the little "L" part was broke,  changed sata cables...perfect boot, but because it was shorting out(Im guessing) it ruined that drive, it was old anyways so tossed it and slapped in a new one all good

[BaldEagl]

It is under warranty .... they come with either a 5 year or 7 year warranty........TC

Or 3 years.  For the 750W Silencer, which is what I have, the warranty was only 3 years on units manufactured before 2008 and 5 years from then until recently when they uppded it again to 7 years.  I built my computer in April 2008 so my manufactuing date may go either way.  It's part of the serial number.  I'm finally going to have a chance to pull the unit today and see what that date is but want to do some final testing first.

During the week I did have a chance to unplug a lot of stuff and it seemed to do better but as I plugged more in to actually be able to see and interact with the system it shut down again.  With nothing plugged in except the CPU, GPU and fans it kept running.  Added the main two HD's and still good.  Added keyboard, monitor and mouse and it shut down when Windows was loading.  Going to try this again today a bit more systematically to make sure I don't have a short somewhere else.

I'm thinking I might just order a new PSU today no matter what to get up and running then if this gets fixed I'll have it as a spare.  Looking at an 850W Corsair at Newegg.