PC all of a sudden won't POST - after 3 years

[dirk_puslich]

Hello all,

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

Setup:
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800MHz FSB CPU
2x Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives (240GB Total) in RAID 0 Stripe Array
1024MB (2x512) Micron PC3200 DDR Ram 400
ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Antec TrueBlue 480Watt Power Supply
Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum EX sound
HP DVD300i DVD+RW CDRW Drive/Burner
LG DVD-ROM
1.44" Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Symptoms:

System worked flawlessly for 3 years. I turned it on yesterday morning
and forgot to turn it off before going to work, so it sat all day
running (which shouldn't be a problem as the case is well cooled and
has been on for days on end). System is on a high quality surge
protector.

When I got home, the monitor was blank so I had to do a hard shutdown
(hold power for 4 seconds).

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

That's it - it just hangs like that.

My suspicion is that either the motherboard is somehow toast, or else
the power supply has partially given out. What do you guys think is
the likely culprit?

I don't want to spend a lot of money on a 3.5 year old machine doing
trial and error with parts, and I don't have an extra MB or power
supply around. I am thinking about testing the power supply with a
multimeter but other than that I'm not sure what to do. If people are
90% sure it's the MB or Power Supply I might take the chance and buy
replacements but if it could be one of many things I might not bother
and sell off the components on Ebay.

Thanks!

 

[Peter Bell]

In message <[email protected]>

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

That's it - it just hangs like that.

I have seen power supplies cause strange effects like this. I had one
machine which would fail to boot - hanging during POST with the IDE
activity light on. Disconnecting the disk would allow the POST to
complete and the CD to be accessible. Swapping the Samsung disk for a
Maxtor would allow the POST to complete and the machine attempt to boot.

I replaced the PSU and the machine ran perfectly with the original
Samsung disk!

 

[Plato]

Take out/disconnect everything but ram and video and see what happens/

 

[Steven Spits]

My suspicion is that either the motherboard is somehow toast, or else
the power supply has partially given out. What do you guys think is
the likely culprit?

Recently I had to fix a PC with the same symptoms as yours: only the fans
would spin, no other activity.

A multimeter showed that the current on all my rails was too low (8V on the
12V line for example).

Steven

- - -

 

[SteveH]

Hello all,

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

Setup:
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800MHz FSB CPU
2x Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives (240GB Total) in RAID 0 Stripe Array
1024MB (2x512) Micron PC3200 DDR Ram 400
ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Antec TrueBlue 480Watt Power Supply
Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum EX sound
HP DVD300i DVD+RW CDRW Drive/Burner
LG DVD-ROM
1.44" Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Symptoms:

System worked flawlessly for 3 years. I turned it on yesterday morning
and forgot to turn it off before going to work, so it sat all day
running (which shouldn't be a problem as the case is well cooled and
has been on for days on end). System is on a high quality surge
protector.

When I got home, the monitor was blank so I had to do a hard shutdown
(hold power for 4 seconds).

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

That's it - it just hangs like that.

My suspicion is that either the motherboard is somehow toast, or else
the power supply has partially given out. What do you guys think is
the likely culprit?

I don't want to spend a lot of money on a 3.5 year old machine doing
trial and error with parts, and I don't have an extra MB or power
supply around. I am thinking about testing the power supply with a
multimeter but other than that I'm not sure what to do. If people are
90% sure it's the MB or Power Supply I might take the chance and buy
replacements but if it could be one of many things I might not bother
and sell off the components on Ebay.

Thanks!

Cue Johns and his now familiar Asus rant.

 

[edavid3001]

Had a simular issue about 3 months ago. My UPS failed, and killed the
PSU. I replaced the PSU and it died also. 3rd PSU, bypassing UPS and
system started working again.

The PSU wasn't comletely dead. I could power it on, and the fan turned
for a second and the lights flashed but then nothing.

 

[Barry Watzman]

My motherboard of almost 4 years died over labor day weekend. Turned it
off fine, next day it was dead (power (fans and lights) did come on, but
no post, no beeps, no boot).

Motherboards do die, sadly.

 

[kony]

Hello all,

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

Setup:
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800MHz FSB CPU
2x Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives (240GB Total) in RAID 0 Stripe Array
1024MB (2x512) Micron PC3200 DDR Ram 400
ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Antec TrueBlue 480Watt Power Supply
Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum EX sound
HP DVD300i DVD+RW CDRW Drive/Burner
LG DVD-ROM
1.44" Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Symptoms:

System worked flawlessly for 3 years. I turned it on yesterday morning
and forgot to turn it off before going to work, so it sat all day
running (which shouldn't be a problem as the case is well cooled and
has been on for days on end). System is on a high quality surge
protector.

When I got home, the monitor was blank so I had to do a hard shutdown
(hold power for 4 seconds).

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

That's it - it just hangs like that.

My suspicion is that either the motherboard is somehow toast, or else
the power supply has partially given out. What do you guys think is
the likely culprit?

Motherboard or power like you suggested. Open the system
and examine the capacitors, check the cards, cables, fans,
etc. Unplug it from AC power for at least 10 minutes then
retry it, then unplug again and clear CMOS with the
motherboard jumper (or pull battery for 10 minutes).

I don't want to spend a lot of money on a 3.5 year old machine doing
trial and error with parts, and I don't have an extra MB or power
supply around.

Well ultimately even if you think you know the case, you'll
still have to buy the replacement part(s), so at worst you
should buy from someplace with a good return policy then
you're only out 15% restocking fee plus shipping (or
similar, could vary per store).

I am thinking about testing the power supply with a
multimeter but other than that I'm not sure what to do. If people are
90% sure it's the MB or Power Supply I might take the chance and buy
replacements but if it could be one of many things I might not bother
and sell off the components on Ebay.

Could be, but first strip the system down to only CPU,
heatsink/fan, 1 memory module, and video- then clear CMOS
with AC still disconnected and try it.

How will selling them on ebay be worthwhile? You can't list
them without mentioning they don't work (else fraud), and
listing several items as possibly dead, they will sell for
less than if you knew which part was bad and could list the
rest as known working, with a no-DOA guarantee (which is
implied anyway, unless you claimed you didn't know if they
worked and were "as-is", but that would also make the parts
sell for almost nothing, since the shipping charge itself
would offset their value to any prospective buyer.

You might remove the PSU, disconnect from AC for a few
minutes then open and inspect it as well- after having
already checked it with a multimeter.

 

[Paul]

Hello all,

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

Setup:
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800MHz FSB CPU
2x Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives (240GB Total) in RAID 0 Stripe Array
1024MB (2x512) Micron PC3200 DDR Ram 400
ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Antec TrueBlue 480Watt Power Supply
Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum EX sound
HP DVD300i DVD+RW CDRW Drive/Burner
LG DVD-ROM
1.44" Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Symptoms:

System worked flawlessly for 3 years. I turned it on yesterday morning
and forgot to turn it off before going to work, so it sat all day
running (which shouldn't be a problem as the case is well cooled and
has been on for days on end). System is on a high quality surge
protector.

When I got home, the monitor was blank so I had to do a hard shutdown
(hold power for 4 seconds).

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

That's it - it just hangs like that.

My suspicion is that either the motherboard is somehow toast, or else
the power supply has partially given out. What do you guys think is
the likely culprit?

I don't want to spend a lot of money on a 3.5 year old machine doing
trial and error with parts, and I don't have an extra MB or power
supply around. I am thinking about testing the power supply with a
multimeter but other than that I'm not sure what to do. If people are
90% sure it's the MB or Power Supply I might take the chance and buy
replacements but if it could be one of many things I might not bother
and sell off the components on Ebay.

Thanks!

Does your Southbridge have a burn mark on it, like the picture
in the first post in this thread ?

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84122

Paul

 

[Rod Speed]

In message <[email protected]>


I have seen power supplies cause strange effects like this. I had one
machine which would fail to boot - hanging during POST with the IDE
activity light on. Disconnecting the disk would allow the POST to
complete and the CD to be accessible. Swapping the Samsung disk for a
Maxtor would allow the POST to complete and the machine attempt to
boot.

I replaced the PSU and the machine ran perfectly with the original
Samsung disk!

Likely one of the rails was under voltage or had a lot of noise
on it and one drive was more sensitive to that than the other.

 

[Jon Danniken]

Recently I had to fix a PC with the same symptoms as yours: only the fans
would spin, no other activity.

A multimeter showed that the current on all my rails was too low (8V on the
12V line for example).

You mean the *voltage* was too low.

Jon

 

[Steven Spits]

You mean the *voltage* was too low.

Yes, I mean voltage, not current.

Sorry, English is not my native language.

Steven

- - -

 

[spacebug]

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

check your c-mos battery on the mainboard.

 

[DaveW]

It's almost undoubtedly either the PSU or the motherboard that has failed,
as you noted. Replacing the PSU, which is the most likely culprit, is
fairly easy and worth trying. If that doesn't fix it, then it's the
motherboard that's bad and it sounds like you'll throw in the towel on this
system at that point.

 

[Venom]

Nobody has mentioned the video card cooking itself.
I'll bet my balls that if you pop a different video card in it will boot up
for you.

 

[Fishman >]

Hello all,

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

Setup:
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800MHz FSB CPU
2x Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives (240GB Total) in RAID 0 Stripe Array
1024MB (2x512) Micron PC3200 DDR Ram 400
ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Antec TrueBlue 480Watt Power Supply
Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum EX sound
HP DVD300i DVD+RW CDRW Drive/Burner
LG DVD-ROM
1.44" Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Symptoms:

System worked flawlessly for 3 years. I turned it on yesterday morning
and forgot to turn it off before going to work, so it sat all day
running (which shouldn't be a problem as the case is well cooled and
has been on for days on end). System is on a high quality surge
protector.

When I got home, the monitor was blank so I had to do a hard shutdown
(hold power for 4 seconds).

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

That's it - it just hangs like that.

My suspicion is that either the motherboard is somehow toast, or else
the power supply has partially given out. What do you guys think is
the likely culprit?

I don't want to spend a lot of money on a 3.5 year old machine doing
trial and error with parts, and I don't have an extra MB or power
supply around. I am thinking about testing the power supply with a
multimeter but other than that I'm not sure what to do. If people are
90% sure it's the MB or Power Supply I might take the chance and buy
replacements but if it could be one of many things I might not bother
and sell off the components on Ebay.

Thanks!

Suggestions:
1) Check CMOS battery is ok - 3V ish.
2) Check for bulging / leaking electrolytic capacitors on mobo.

 

[kony]

Nobody has mentioned the video card cooking itself.
I'll bet my balls that if you pop a different video card in it will boot up
for you.

While it's possible, so are many things. If the video card
fan hasn't failed and the system wasn't excessively
overheating, you might be careful about bets as you only get
to lose twice.

 

[Bubba]

Might also want to remove, clean and reseat all cards, memory, and CPU.
Also perhaps clean back dust off of Mobo.

 

[Robert Hancock]

Hello all,

Here is my problem - I built a PC over 3 years ago and for no obvious
reason it has just stopped working. Here is the setup and my symptoms:

Setup:
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800MHz FSB CPU
2x Seagate 120GB SATA Hard Drives (240GB Total) in RAID 0 Stripe Array
1024MB (2x512) Micron PC3200 DDR Ram 400
ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Antec TrueBlue 480Watt Power Supply
Creative SB Audigy2 Platinum EX sound
HP DVD300i DVD+RW CDRW Drive/Burner
LG DVD-ROM
1.44" Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Pro

Symptoms:

System worked flawlessly for 3 years. I turned it on yesterday morning
and forgot to turn it off before going to work, so it sat all day
running (which shouldn't be a problem as the case is well cooled and
has been on for days on end). System is on a high quality surge
protector.

When I got home, the monitor was blank so I had to do a hard shutdown
(hold power for 4 seconds).

When I try to boot the machine now, the fans whirl up, the
motherboard's power LED comes on, but
- there is no POST,
- no video to the monitor
- no HDD activity (the drives don't spin up and the cased LED for HDD
activity is blank)
- The green LED on the DVD Burner stays solid green
- no beeps whatsoever
- the optical mouse has power

If the hard drives don't spin up, almost certain that the power supply
is not working properly. If you have a multimeter, measure the voltage
between the black ground wires and the red (+5V) and yellow (+12V) lines
on one of the drive power connectors, you'll likely find one or both are
way off..