Help with crashed PC maybe power supply issue

S

saulat_99

New Member
Woke up today to the black screen saying something like no boot device loaded or something like that. Whenever the power goes out or seemingly randomly at other times I will get that screen and have to enter BIOS to set the boot device order to hard drive first. I did this today and it would not boot. I tried another time or two and decided to open up the PC and check the connections and spray some cleaner to get the dust out. Everything looked good. I turned on the computer and it sounded like surges of power from the power supply with things starting up then slowing down repeatedly and then it shut off. It is not turning on now. Can anyone help me out? I thought worst case I'll need another hard drive but now I don't know what it is. Thanks.
 
do you get any sign of life when you press the power button, do you hear fans spin, or power supply start ? if not i would say your psu has blown, when you mention the power going does that happen often ?
 
I had the switch on the back turned off. It does come on but its like it is getting surges of power and I must flip the master switch in back to turn it off, holding the front button in does not turn it off. No signs of life on the monitor. I do hear the fans spin, they start to power up and then slow down, it just cycles like that.

The power does seem to go out often however my clocks do not always reset which makes me wonder if it is always a power surge causing my computer to reset and need BIOS boot devices reordered. I wonder if I need a battery for the CMOS. There is also an LCD monitoring screen on the case that was wired into my motherboard when I bought the barebones kit years ago, the LCD screen has never really worked. It is either off or flickering and unreadable from practically day 1.
 
I have a dell dimension 8400 as a secondary computer in the home. Could I use the power supply to test my custom PC?
 
According to dell it is a 350 watt, the corsair 550 is what is in my custom PC. I doubt I'll get around to it till the weekend but I suppose I could run the minimum on the dell power supply and see if I can get the computer booted up.

I am worried that maybe the duster introduced some moisture and fried the power supply on top of the initial problem of maybe a failed hard drive. Thanks to the PC devil for teaching me to do back ups on a second hard drive
 
yes 350w should be enough just to test it but wouldn`t leave it in to run on, wouldn`t assume your hard drives damaged till you test with psu, might be lucky :)
 
Still think its strange it wouldn't boot up. Is it normal to have to reset boot priority and primary hard drive at BIOS when there is a power outtage? Kind of wondered if the battery on the MOBO was going bad. I'll update once I get around to testing things out.
 
Well, I took my PC to dell because I had some gift certificates and wanted a diagnostic. They found a blown capacitor on my motherboard and also said the power supply was bad. I can't remember what the reasoning was for saying my power supply was bad but I guess I am left assuming they are correct. I ordered this as a barebones kit with the case, MOBO, and processor coming as a set. They couldn't tell me if the processor was still good or not. No idea if it is soldered to the board but I don't think it is.

I will likely just order the same MOBO and PSU as before and get a better surge protector for the future. They did say if I replace the parts there is a 30 day diagnostic warranty and they will look everything over again for free. Here are my questions...

Can I salvage the processor to avoid buying a new one or is there a good chance it is bad or soldered in there?

Can I trust their assessment of my PC?
 
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