System not turning on

[pillar]

So I was just minding my own business, working on downloading music for an upcoming gig, when all the sudden my system shuts off. First thing that pops up into my head is virus. Then my system starts having a real tough time booting up. Now I know its not a virus because it was able to come up to the sign in screen for Win 7, but took a moment to recognize my keyboard. Now im thinking its the psu. Now whenever I try to power it on, it cant even go thru the post. It will probably last for 2 secs, then automatically shut down.

Ive tried taking it out of the power strip & plugging it into the wall to see if it was the strip, but same result. Right now all thats running is my router & my clock.

Whats interesting is that the psu has enough juice to keep my other cell phone charged up (then again, doesnt take much to charge up a cell phone these days).

Right now I dont have another psu to try it with, but I have a neighbor in my apartments that may have a usable psu that I might be able to borrow (if I run into him again, which shouldnt be too hard).

Any ideas?

 

[The Slayer]

Probably a broken PSU. Had the same thing copple of days ago. I turned my PC on, suddenly shutted of. No way to get it back started. Unplugged power cable, plugged back in. Tried to boot. Fans were working for 2 secs, then they fell out again. Broken PSU i tell u. Be carefull with PSU's tough. They can destroy several components

 

[pillar]

which company made ur broken psu? just curious. anyways, a friend of mine told me to take it to this computer place in town where they can test it for free.

 

[Mr.Game]

which company made ur broken psu? just curious. anyways, a friend of mine told me to take it to this computer place in town where they can test it for free.

If you can get it tested for free, that's great, taking it to them would be
much faster than troubleshooting here.

It's better to actually be in-front of the PC rather than try to remotely
figure it out when it can't even turn on.


I hate PC places that charge you just to look at it, then charge you for
a quote, A QUOTE...

 

[crackdaddy]

If you have a mulitmeter you can test it.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/guides/testingPSU/

btw be sure to keep the motherboard cable plugged in while testing it.

Its almost for sure the PSU.

a link with better directions.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ht/power-supply-test-multimeter.htm

 

[pillar]

well took it to the store to get it tested earlier. doesnt even hit 5v. so yep power supply is toast. i will find a way to safely recycle the power supply.

 

[The Slayer]

which company made ur broken psu? just curious. anyways, a friend of mine told me to take it to this computer place in town where they can test it for free.

corsair did. When i got my PSU tested at the PC shop, it only showed 1 channel or something. Didn't ask for more details lol .

 

[pillar]

ok new issue. still having the same issue, but w/ new corsair 650w psu. just turnin on for 2 secs then turning off. possible motherboard gone? good news is that i have another motherboard to try (extra replica of my old motherboard). no data loss on primary drive because of this. however, im wondering, will paper towel be ok since we dont have any paper bags? is the texture ok on the surface of the cpu & the heatsink?

 

[crackdaddy]

Ok, time to bust out the disecting tools.

Have New PSU tested its not unheard of to get a bad unit.
If that is fine, (careful some PSU's test fine,but when under load fail instantly)

Pull off heatsink, and reseat cpu and retry, No joy?
pull out all the pci cards and retry. No joy?
Pull out the pcie card (if you have onboard video and retry) No Joy?
Pull out all the memory except one stick, try that as many times as you have sticks of memory. No Joy?

if still no joy? pull the motherboard out of the case and repeat this entire test procedure all over again with your motherboard on a piece of cardboard or as we say bench test it.

If If you have cpu that you can beg/borrow that will fit your board you may want to try that.

It may be the motherboard, but I've seen similar issues come up will everyone of these things I'm having you check. GL

 

[pillar]

Well temp bad news is that i cant find my thermal paste for my heatsink. If i cant find it around here, theres a store in the city where I can get it cheaper than Newegg (& dont have 2 worry bout s&h). Good news is that I have tomorrow off, so ill have all day to work on it.

 

[pillar]

Ok so new issue now. The system is able to boot up past the post area. As per what you said, ill try pulling out the sound card (the only pci card) & try that. Unfortunately my motherboard doesnt have a vga slot (only negative about the motherboard) so I have to have the video card in it. I can also try the whole memory idea. I think ill try 1 stick of memory in each of the slots so I can determine whether theres a possible bad memory slot. More updates to follow. Btw, I dont have cardboard right off the bat, but im sure my work will allow me to take 1 piece of it home (not sure how much of a good idea it is since I work in a warehouse tho).

**EDIT** Found out that the issue was rather simple. See the heatsink fan I use to keep my c2d cool is the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. Ive had it for a few years. The problem is that the "legs" have started to show wear in them. The problem was that 1 of the "legs" wasnt all the way thru the motherboard. Just had to push it in & just like that, no more issues. Going to put my sound card & memory back in.