Dead PSU or Mobo???

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DefJae

n00b
Joined
Mar 12, 2006
Messages
52
Ok I may need your help guys. I tried powering on my PC, but the only things that happens are as follows - Lights flash for a about a second, fans spun for about a second and thats about it, tried pressing that damn On button a few more times with the same result. I even switched surge protector, plug in the PSU directly to the wall, but no go. Seems like I'm not getting enough juice, I unplug everything except mobo and vid card, but getting the same exact result...just lights flashing and fans speening for about 1 sec.

Not sure which is dead, Mobo or PSU??
 
any beeps or diag lights? what mobo???

it could be the CPU or RAM. most of the time if it powers on and then off. it is the CPU or ram.. different beeps or lights on the mobo depending on which one it is will tell you what it is..

my DFI has 4 lights ... one light is CPU, 2 is RAM, 3 is GPU and 4 is BIOS chip...

my Asus A8N audably tells you "CPU" or "system memory" or "video card" "failure"

make sure you have a speaker pluged in to the mobo header... and let us know what the beeps are..
 
don't suppose you have another psu you could try huh?

you could unplug everything except a hard drive and turn the psu on (using the jumper method since it won't be connected to the board) and then read the voltages on the atx connector with a meter. That will give you some indication. Although I suppose it could be possible that the psu can deliver enough voltage but not the current needed.

:EDIT: -Adidas- I have a DFI board and when the cpu was dead it also gave 4 lights. It didn't however power on then off. It just stayed on. I also have the A8N32 in my sig and it wouldn't say shit about the cpu being bad. No beep codes or speech, it would just turn on as soon as power was supplied to the psu.
 
No beeps, i'll check up on the lights. Unfortunately I dont have a spare PSU in hand. I'll try removing the ram see if that helps. My CPU died before but I was still able to fully power on the PC. Just weird because I never encounter something like this before....I'll try few more things to narrow things down.
 
Reset the CMOS in case some strange voltage has been set for the CPU etc.

Should that not be it something is causing the PSU to trip.
This could be anything connected to the PSU or a faulty PSU.
As mentioned, unplug everthing that isnt needed to get a display on the screen.
If that works, plug the other things in until it fails.

If it still fails, it could be the PSU or anything on left in the system thats at fault.
You will need to try other parts or put yours in another machine to test.
 
take your PSU to compusa and have one of the people at the tech counter test it for you... i work there and do it for people free of charge all the time.

or they sell a $15 tester...

14 days no restocking fee just keep the recipt and return it... :)


oh and my DFI stopped and gave me 3 LEDs when my GPU got water from my cooling loop on it :)

also it stopped at one when i decapped my first CPU a 3000+ winchester about a year and a half ago....

so i have had good luck with diag stuff..
 
Ok all 4 diagnostic LEDS comes on (amber red or orange red) when I try to power on the PC. I took out the ram and still no go...

unplug everything even the Video Card only thing that is left is the mobo. Still getting the 4 diag led, but its just a quick flash. I also did a full BIOS reset and still no go.

I also notice that if I put my ear near the PSU i can hear some sort of ringing buzzing or hissing noice. It is not loud or anything, but fairly noticeable.
 
On those DFI's, I've read that some people leave the CMOS reset jumpered overnight to clear it. Hell, DFI even recommends it. I think they even go as far as telling people to pull the battery as well as do the reset jumper. A little anal I think, but it may be worth a shot. I did notice on my Ultra-D that simply doing the CMOS reset jumper for about a minute didn't always clear it, so maybe there's something to it. :confused:
 
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