Help request (PC technical, you might wanna read to LOL at me)

Propkid

Propkid

Member
SO as some of you who have played today's PuG might know, I've recorded two 25 minute PuGs today, and I was going to compress them tonight.

So I've started up the compression right after the PuGs ended and left for dinner. I came back after around 15 minutes and I saw that the monitor has gone black. I was like 'ok, it's gone to sleep' so I pressed the mouse button but there was no reaction. I looked at the PC and noticed that the diodes on it are blinking (1 second on, 1 second off) and that i can't hear any of the fans working. I pressed the power button and nothing hapenned.

I figured the PC got overheated by the amount of HDD action it had today (recorded ~50GB of movies etc). Since none of the fans were working I guess it was the power supply that was down, but i wasn't sure. I turned off the power supply and only after 8 seconds of it being off the light diodes stopped flashing (?). I opened the PC up, vacuumed around a bit, checked if nothing smells of sillicon BBQ and closed it. Replugged it to electricity and attempted to turn it on again.

Everything is connected fine, but the PC is completely unresponsive to the power button. Nothing lights up, the fans don't go on. And I've just reinstalled Windows 7 a couple of weeks ago...

My questions are:
How do I diagnose what is wrong with the PC?
IF it is the power supply... uhm can I count for some help as to how to replace it?
Does anyone know a decent place with computer parts near Helsinki? :]

EDIT: Sorry! Should've posted in off-topic...
 
MJ1284

MJ1284

Member
Replacing power supply unit ain't much different from replacing other parts, you just have to look carefully (maybe even take a picture) of which power line goes to which board & device. And do double-check that every cable is in place inside & outside the computer case, that vacuuming could have knocked a wire or two loose :)
If new PSU doesn't help I'm afraid your motherboard could be busted, at that point you're pretty much better off buying new computer altogether.

I haven't visited IT-shops around Helsinki (I live in Turku), but I'd bet Verkkokauppa.com has adequate supplies (but technically it's not IT-shop).
 
Propkid

Propkid

Member
Detached the PSU and taking it to Verkkokauppa (IT place) to see if they can test it. It can be only turned on electronically (via motherboard -.-) so I can't test it alone.
Let's hope that after I'm done I can plug it all in again...
 
Vinzyboy23

Vinzyboy23

Member
Propkid said:
I was like 'ok, it's gone to sleep' so I pressed the mouse button but there was no reaction. I looked at the PC and noticed that the diodes on it are blinking (1 second on, 1 second off) and that i can't hear any of the fans working. I pressed the power button and nothing hapenned.
Click to expand...
Well, actually it happened to me three weeks ago. Same problems, but I think it is the power supply OR the motherboard. If anything is working fine (Monitor, adaptor, power box, plugs) but the CPU, It's the Power Supply.
 
Propkid

Propkid

Member
Verkkokauppa doesn't do computer parts testing... So the question remains: how do I check whether it's the motherboard or the power supply unit that's not working?
Ima go an try to connect the PSU to my old PC's motherboard (as in only the control cable which turns the power supply on).

The Power Supply Unit fan is spinning if i connect the control cable to the other PC's motherboard... argh it's most likely the motherboard... X_X there's still a small chance of it being the power switch or the PSU... anyone can tell me what to do now? Tomorrow I'm going to town to look for PC service shops, but there must be a home way to check what's wrong...
 
Vinzyboy23

Vinzyboy23

Member
And if after pushing the power button and the only thing that is working is the fans, It's the power supply.

EDIT: You mentioned it was blinking right?
 
Propkid

Propkid

Member
There are 2 blue light diodes on the case and they were flashing.
Also, after I opened the PC up I saw that the chassis fan moved slightly whenever I pressed the power button...
Gah, why do I keep on breaking motherboards...
 
Propkid

Propkid

Member
I (finally) came up with a way of home diagnosis with what's broken and what's not: unplugging each part one-by-one (but leaving the main cable that enables the PSU to start up) and trying to turn on the PC without it...
But it only got me more confused as to what's wrong. Here's how it went:

Unplugging the components one-by-one from the power supply unit only made the PC responsive once ALL of the components were plugged out. RAM was the last thing that I've plugged out and only then the PC responded (wtf #1) to the power button (ie. the fans on the chassis, PSU and CPU started spinning).

'OK, it might not be the motherboard' I thought, so I started plugging stuff in one-by-one and seeing if the computer responds again. After repeating this procedure a couple of times I've figured out that:

- When I unplug every PSU cable (but that main one which enables it to turn on) then the PC starts up.
- When I plug the CPU power supply cable (at least I think that's the cable, couldn't confirm using the internet back into the motherboard, the PC doesn't start up.
- When I unplug that cable the PC still won't start up. (wtf? #2)
- To start up the PC again I need to unplug the above cable and remove the GFX card. (wtf? #3)
- After plugging in the GFX card back again but not plugging in that damn cable the PC still starts up.

Now I'm completely baffled. I don't know if the broken component is the motherboard, the CPU, a cable, the GFX card or the power supply unit...

http://img.bazarek.pl/140409/10911/800036/20572213344b8fd8b015928.jpg
That's my motherboard, the plug for that cable is the black square in the right top corner.
I'll repeat: unplugging that cable doesn't make the PC bootable. It's unplugging the GFX card AND that cable that makes the PC bootable. When the GFX card is out and the cable is in then the PC does not boot. After the GFX card and the cable are removed it's still possible to put the GFX card back in and boot the PC.
This goes beyond my understanding...

My question is: anyone can hint me as to what to do now? I'll try replacing the CPU with another one if I find one with an am3 socket (>.<) but that's not likely to happen. I'll take it back to the country where I bought it in a couple of months since the warranty is still actual, but not having a desktop PC for so long...
 
Ragol

Ragol

New Member
In response to wtf #1: Have you tried your RAM sticks individually in slot #1? Bad RAM can cause issues like this with some machines.

If that isn't the case it sounds to me like a motherboard issue, but to make sure the PSU isn't the culprit I'd try the following.

Install your PSU in the other machine along with a few additional components from your primary machine (hard drives, optical drives) in order to check if excess load is causing the failure to boot. I'm just assuming that the secondary machine requires less power to run. If you feel like being precise you can use this calculator to match the power requirements of both machines.

Though you're beyond that point now, it is possible to start up a PSU without a motherboard using this technique.
 
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