Interesting IO Panel Problem

[Blue Stealth]

bonus points for anyone who knows what might be wrong here.

I was talking with people on ventrilo and listening to music when BAM, computer begins shutdown sequence. Thats fine, automatic update might have attacked. Unfortunately this was not the case. My computer shuts down. Then starts back up. Then shuts back down. then starts back up, in an infinite loop. The only way for me to get it to stop is by pulling the plug.

There was no power surge of any sort and the energy cycles are normal, so no electricity damage to my components that I can see. I tried unplugging the power cord and letting the power completely drain from my machine for a good couple minutes. No luck. I tried plugging it into a different outlet, no luck. I even tried resetting CMOS and taking the CMOS battery out of the damn board to manually reset. No luck.

After reseating RAM, GPU, Audio, and reattaching motherboard power cables, still no luck. As a last resort, hoping that the PSU was not to blame for the shenanigans, I decided to unplug my entire front panel IO connector. My computer started up fine. I turned it off, plugged the IO panel back in to make sure it wasnt just a bad connection, and I was stuck in the stupid reboot loop again. The weird part is, whenever I turn my PSU switch on, I don't have to initiate the startup in any way. I don't press any buttons or anything, the computer just tries to startup and enters this stupid loop garbage by itself. So fortunately my motherboard has a big manual start button on it incase my front panel doesnt work and I have been using that button to start my computer up.

My question to you guys is, I have found the problem, but do not know the exact cause or fix. Does anyone here have any theory as to what might be going on? Perhaps a poor grounding job?

oh and P.S. my computer clock reset itself to January 2002.....derp

-Blue

 

[Frank Booth]

Yea, never mess with the CMOS battery. That is like a last last resort. In the old days before on board flash that would be a kill move for the board. That is why your date may be off.

Am i to understand this is a IO panel for USB and such or a sound card IO panel for like a high end creative card?

Also, the shutdown loop could damage your computer, it all depends on what is going on. One bad resistor or capacitor in the wrong place and you could kill something for good. But if those were soft shutdowns you might be fine, doing a cold shutdown when you cut the juice has the risk of overloading something due to the back emf.

Now to the meat of the problem. The IO panel could be doing several things. Not having the computer in front to troubleshoot make it hard to say. But there may be a short on the connectors, in the wire that connects the IO panel to the mobo, or in the IO panel itself. The new mobos are very advanced when it comes to power management and will try and save itself from a sudden death, and Windows is programed to do that as well. Unplug the CPU fan and Windows will shut down, for example. At what point does the loop happen? Within windows, or after POST? This could be a BIOS setting or a virus even.

First thing to do is to inspect the IO panel assembly and clean it out. Look for burnt marks and smell very close for burnt smell, feel the wire for density and structure consistency. If nothing seems wrong clean it very well and plug it back in. But before you do take everything out first. I would start with just the basic components, keep things simple as much as possible, and that way the other stuff won't draw a current, and gradually add thing on. If the problem persists try another connector on the mobo for the IO panel if you have one. Or change the cable, or get an different IO panel if you can. That should troubleshoot the IO panel and tell you if it is to blame or it is something else.

Also, clean all the dust out of the whole tower. I have seen that work miracles on PC problems.

I will try and think of more.

 

[Blue Stealth]

To answer your questions I am talking about the IO panel wires connecting my HDD and CPU LED light along with my power button and reset button.

I quickly inspected my connectors yesterday when I had this problem and checked for burn marks. I did not find anything but I am sure they could use a cleaning.

As for when the shutdown occurs, it never even got to the BIOS or POST when it was in the loop. It would stay on long enough to power up the fans for my GPU and CPU and then it would die, etc.

This is partly why I took the CMOS battery out to examine it as I was concerned the problem initially lied with the motherboard or the BIOS chip.

Thanks for your reply,
-Blue

 

[Frank Booth]

How long have you had that set up like that? You change the position of the pins anytime soon?

If you can go into bios turn on the post screen where it boots up the components. Take everything out, i mean everything. Boot up empty pc, maybe just with ram in, you might get a few beeps and shuts down. Add the HD and listen see if it boots up right. The sound is distinct. It should click a few times, spin a little and move. If it gets stuck on the HD take it out put in the video card and boot without the HD and you should get an no OS/HD/Partition found or something. Put in the HD and see what happens. Listen to it, you can hear if it boots right. Add sound card and other things one at a time.

Look at the pci or pcie slot for the sound card and see if any shorts took place too. And double check the power button, hd light, etc. wires are in the correct pins.

 

[Blue Stealth]

How long have you had that set up like that? You change the position of the pins anytime soon?

If you can go into bios turn on the post screen where it boots up the components. Take everything out, i mean everything. Boot up empty pc just with ram in. Add the HD and listen see if it boots up right. The sound is distinct. It should click a few times, spin a little and move. If it gets stuck on the HD take it out put in the video card and boot without the HD and you should get an no OS found or something. Put in the HD and see what happens. Listen to it, you can hear if it boots right. Add sound card and other things one at a time.

Look at the pci or pcie slot for the sound card and see if any shorts took place too. And double check the power button, hd light, etc. wires are in the correct pins.

to answer your first question, I have not altered connections to my motherboard for months with the exception of reseating my GPU and RAM a couple times. The last time I was messing with my front panel would be back in early June of this year.

perhaps I did not make it aparent enough in my initial post, but my computer starts up fine, just only when I have unplugged my power button, reset button, cpu and hdd LED light connectors from the motherboard. Its not a problem with any other piece of my hardware. The issue lies within the actual connectors I mentioned in the sentence above. I am typing this to you on the problematic computer. I know that my problem is coming from my front panel connectors like I have mentioned, I just don't know exactly why they would be causing a problem or how I could go about fixing it. I have never had this sort of problem before or even heard of it.

to be as specific as I can, the white extension piece in the middle is the one causing the reboot cycle in my computer.

when the white connector is plugged in, the computer won't even get to BIOS. When its unplugged, the computer works perfectly fine. I even left it on all night to make sure, no issues.

 

[Frank Booth]

Just jack straight into the board, no q connector. It is possible the blue is for USB and red for FireWire. Surprised it worked if they are.

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=W7i5W4Pw4fH22Mih

The manual in download should have the correct config if you lost yours. Why did it go crazy and stop working? Who knows. But if it works without the connector you should be good.
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Ok, i see the problem. Those things are to be 3 in 1 q connectors.

http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=3561&catid=594

They are supposed to make it easier to take out the front panel pins. You should not need any of them and can jack right in the mobo, which is what i would do. If you see the pins on the blue one don't match the pins on the left half of the white one, so the alignment of the wires might be different. I have yet to be able to say which one to use and why. But the white one may not match the case setup and shorts the circuit in the wrong place and the mobo does not like it, though i imagine there is writing on the other side of the white one. Manual might say, looking.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RZpqU3umU[/ame]

 

[steel]

i may make my self sound dumb here but i had this happen and it was my power button it was like stuck even though it would still click got a new one from frozencpu.com popped it in and it never happened again

 

[Blue Stealth]

i may make my self sound dumb here but i had this happen and it was my power button it was like stuck even though it would still click got a new one from frozencpu.com popped it in and it never happened again

yeh I tried toggling my power button, trying to make sure it was not stuck in place. I did not try with the reset switch, though. I will try that in a couple hours once I get some school work done.

-Blue

 

[steel]

well mine still clicked i think it was just shorted out inside the switch so thats something to think about i hope you get it worked out

 

[Blue Stealth]

well mine still clicked i think it was just shorted out inside the switch so thats something to think about i hope you get it worked out

very true, thanks.

 

[Snipeye]

If no further discussion necessary, will close thread.