Computer died

[ThomasKaira]

Bad news, I'm afraid.

Last night, as I was shutting down for the night, my PC suddenly decided it was done working, and is now bricked.

The only sign of life is the power light blinks at me whenever I switch on the power supply, but other than that, absolutely nothing. No fan activity, no monitor activity, nothing.

I think I need to get a new power supply.

Unless anyone thinks otherwise?

[Hanaisse]

Oh, ugh, that sinking feeling of shock when your PC doesn't want to play any more.

Assuming you've checked all your power cords, your surge protector (if you have one), even the electrical outlet and power checks out ok there, then yeah, my first thought would be your PSU. And that tends to be a good chunk of cash.

[Arthmoor]

Yep. Check cords, outlet, surge protector overload reset button, and the circuit breaker outside if it's on a separate circuit from the rest of the room. If all that checks out, PSU would be my first guess. Since you ARE seeing indications of power flow though, after the PSU I'd suspect the motherboard.

[ThomasKaira]

Cords-- All checked, nothing wrong with them as far as I can tell.

Outlet is fine, as I have other powered items that run on the same outlet.

Surge protector reset-- Might be in an odd place or nonexistent, because I cannot see one from where the PSU is mounted.

My room is on a single circuit breaker, and all the outlets inside work, so that not it.

Last thing to do now is swap out to a backup power supply and try the computer on that. If that works, we start shopping for a new PSU.

[_echo]

Start with the power supply and work in a logical path to all your other componants. If the power supply isnt turning on, then try replacing it.

Hope you have an extra computer you can gut for testing.

[Khettienna]

You need one of these:

Good luck with the repairs!

[Arion]

Power light blinking when you turn it on but no fans, etc.... Check your graphics cared and any other cards you have and see if there's a burn mark. Another thing to look at would be the pots on the motherboard. They'll be the little cyclindes with what looks like a X etched on the top. Generally around the CPU. It sounds like something burned out and is causing a short. I'm suspecting something other than the PS because you are getting a blinking light, but the system isn't posting.

[DsoS]

Sounds like RAM actually. I've had this happen before, power to the PSU but nothing else.

But with computers now-a-days it could be anything.

Good Luck, TK

[Brozly]

You should be able to jumper the Green to a Black wire to test your Power Supply.

[ThomasKaira]

Okay, good news and bad news.

Good news is, the PSU was definitely fried. After exchanging the power supply for a backup, I was able to turn the computer on again.

Bad news: Unfortunately, the computer is failing POST, which means that the PSU's death may have damaged my system's hardware. And this is where it gets really angering, because the idiots who built it for us did not bother to place beep codes onto the MoBo, that means I have no way of knowing exactly where the POST test is failing.

I may be forced to send this one to the shop, and that does not make me happy at all. However, since I at least have power now, that did allow me to dunk into my DVD drive and retrieve my Oblivion game disc (which was trapped inside when the old PSU died).

Edited June 17, 2011 by ThomasKaira

[HeyYou]

Beep codes are a product of the system bios. Not something anyone (aside from the folks that write the bios) can install. Most MB's will have a speaker built into the board for just such a purpose, others, have to be plugged into the sound card in order to clue you in as to what is (not?) going on.

Do you get any kind of display on the screen?

[Leonardo]

Okay, good news and bad news.

Good news is, the PSU was definitely fried. After exchanging the power supply for a backup, I was able to turn the computer on again.

Bad news: Unfortunately, the computer is failing POST, which means that the PSU's death may have damaged my system's hardware. And this is where it gets really angering, because the idiots who built it for us did not bother to place beep codes onto the MoBo, that means I have no way of knowing exactly where the POST test is failing.

I may be forced to send this one to the shop, and that does not make me happy at all. However, since I at least have power now, that did allow me to dunk into my DVD drive and retrieve my Oblivion game disc (which was trapped inside when the old PSU died).

Do you have the manual for this mobo or not?

If not just open the chassi and look on your mobo to see if you can find some letters+numbers (ASUS P5L VM-1394 or similar) somewhere on the mobo. Once you have it just do a Google search and download the updated mobo drivers then install them on your PC. Good luck.

FYI you don't need to turn on your PC just because you forgot to retrieve your DVD disc actually you can manually get your DVD disc through a tiny hole on the DVD front even if their is no power on. Just look on the either left or the right side for a tiny hole and if you can't see it just check the instructions for your DVD-device of how to do it.

[ThomasKaira]

There is no display on the screen whatsoever. This makes it extremely difficult to do pretty much anything at this point if it requires turning the system on.

[ThomasKaira]

Okay, I finally found a way to get picture, and this has led to a number of revalations:

1. One of my PCI-E slots has been fried. Upon switching to the second video card in a different PCI-E slot, I was able to get picture back. Tested the other card in there, as well, and it worked okay.

2. My system is not able to boot from ANYWHERE. It demonstrates very erratic behavior when I try to boot from the Hard Drives, from simply freezing, to restarting, but always failing to boot. Furthermore, attempts to boot from a Windows disc fared no better, with the computer simply freezing as it tried to load all the files off the disc.

This means the probability of Motherboard failure at this point is quite high. To be absolutely certain, I am going to be sending the PC in for a shop test, but the question is no longer IF the PSU's failure caused any damage, but what.

[DaMage]

When I cannot boot from a drive, I tend to get out my ubuntu CD and boot from that. It is a very effective way of booting the computer with needing to access the harddrives.

Once booted you'll be able ot get more infomation on why the harddrives arent working.

[ThomasKaira]

When I cannot boot from a drive, I tend to get out my ubuntu CD and boot from that. It is a very effective way of booting the computer with needing to access the harddrives.

Once booted you'll be able ot get more infomation on why the harddrives arent working.

Sorry, no can do. I can't boot off a disc, either.

To be fair, I tried a Ubuntu disc, and that failed, as well.

Because of that, it's time to make this official: MY RIG IS DEAD.

I no longer have any choice in the matter. I must begin shopping for a new PC.

[Meo]

Alrighty then. You need to find a real computer shop near you. A place specialized in selling parts. They have great prices and will charge you $100 to put it all together for you. Dont go for an off the shelf box.

[DaMage]

Yep, that motherboard is dead I'd say.....since I doubt every part on your computer got fried at once.

And as Meo said, best deals are from local IT places who you can get to build a system for thebest prices (if you cant do it yourself).

[donnato]

But...you CAN do it your self...up to you but...it`s not that hard just bear in mind...static electricity...killer...otherwise it`s just mount/screw in/plug up/read/arrange/read/plugin/boot/load software/configure/tweek/...PLAY...

[ThomasKaira]

Okay, I think I've decided on the replacement parts to get. Wherever incompatibilities exist between my current MoBo and the new one, the part will be upgraded. Here's the parts:

MoBo: MSI P67A - GD65 -- ATX Form Factor, Intel P67 NB, USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/sec

CPU: Intel Core i5 - 2500K @3.3GHz

RAM: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 SDRAM, 8Gb (4x 2Gb) @1600MHz

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64

[Arthmoor]

Video?

Otherwise you'll be in pretty good shape with that.

[ThomasKaira]

I'm retaining my old 8800GTs for now, they were undamaged when the MoBo kicked it. I'm scrapping my plans to get a GTX 460 for now, at least until I finish this restoration project.

[donnato]

[ThomasKaira]

Looks like I'm going to need to add a new DVD drive to the list, as well. My current drive is ATA-133, which is unsupported by my proposed MoBo model, so I have to switch to a SATA drive.

Good news is, DVD drives are fairly cheap nowadays, and I can get a decent 18X drive for about $20.00 off of Newegg (and 6 or 7 dollars more for another SATA data cable), so I'll easily be able to replace that.

But my dear ol' floppy drive will need to be retired.

[Arthmoor]

People still use floppy drives?