Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: SKJohn on May 10, 2010, 09:28:40 AM
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Yesterday I was re-installing Vista, and everything was going along as normal - doing the re-start, re-boot thing and all. Later that evening, I went in and it appeared the computer had shut itself off. I thought maybe the power settings had done an outo shutoff after XX amnount of time etc.
Anyway this morning I went in to start it, and it will not even power up. There is a yellow and a blue light that I can see on the MB, and the monitor and other peripheals (sp?) are getting power. I've turned off the power unplugged it, anything I can think of and it just will nto switch on or power up - nothing?
Any ideas on what to check? Is there a circuit breaker or somehting somewhere that I don't know about that I can re-set? BTW - the power supply is a Tagan BZ900 Piperock (IIRC). How can I make sure that it is getting power? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
John
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Do you have a power supply tester? If not, is there a chance of replacing the PSU to see if your system will start?
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Do you have a power supply tester? If not, is there a chance of replacing the PSU to see if your system will start?
No, I don't have another PSU around to test it with. What is a "power supply tester" and where would you get one? Are they expensive?
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This may be one of those grey areas that may be hard to diagnose if you don't have spare parts you can swap in, to narrow down what could be wrong. First I would see if those lights on your MB are diagnostic lights, maybe when they are lit they are telling you something.
Second, I would disconnect everything but the bare minimum to get to the BIOS... no hard drive, no peripherals (not even a mouse), no CDs or floppies if you use one, just keyboard and monitor. The idea here is to use as little juice as possible, so that if it is a power supply problem, you're stressing it as little as possible. If it works, leave it running for a while and see if it shuts down again. If it still works, add things back in order of importance (mouse and hard drive before CD drive, before peripherals) until it re-fails. That should tell you something, either a component that is broken and drawing too much power, or that your power supply is dying and isn't giving enough power.
Third, I don't know what a power supply tester is either, but I don't think most people can be expected to just have one. I just googled it and this was the top result, I agree with what they say: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/f/powersupplytest.htm .
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No, I don't have another PSU around to test it with. What is a "power supply tester" and where would you get one? Are they expensive?
Usually less than $30. This one is under $15:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899705002&cm_re=PSU_tester-_-99-705-002-_-Product
Having shown you that I feel I also have to tell you that checking out a PSU on a good oscilloscope is the only way to be sure. Little testers like this one never give you a complete picture.
Before you buy another PSU make sure you check a few out and read this article:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/410
That site is pretty handy and does a good job on testing PSUs.