Troubleshooting Computer, help!?!

J

jrs6494

New Member
Let me explain about the problem. First off this was an email I sent to a friend and just copied it to make it easier. Susan is my wife and it is her computer giving me issues.

When Susan came down in the morning the PC was off. She attempted to turn it on but nothing came on the monitor. All the fans and such turned on though.

When I came down I tried powering it on and It did the same thing. I tried holding down the power button to turn it off but it would not even after holding it for 20 seconds. I had to turn it off by the power supply. I tried this a couple of times and the same thing happened.

I opened up the case and looked inside while I started to see if anything looked wrong but didn’t notice anything. I then decided to remove the hard drive and put it in my PC to see if it would boot. Sure enough it did.

I then took the PC to the back room and put it on a table and brought the monitor with it. Installed the hard drive and plugged the sata cable into another port. Turned on the PC and it booted up this time. I turned it off by the power button and moved the sata cable to another port. Once again it worked. I then deiced to move the cable back to the first port and it worked there too.

I was super confused at this point.

I did notice that the fan on the video card was not spinning when the PC was on. I took out the video card and put it back in making sure it was in good. This time the fan came on when I booted the PC and it booted correctly.

After that I left the PC alone thinking it was fine. When Susan came home for lunch I decided to show her and tried to turn it on. Surprise! It did not work. Piss me off.

So I decided to reset the bios and try booting it, nothing. I then took out all the Ram and tried to boot it and got nothing which I should at this point.

Now I took one stick of Ram and put it in the first slot. It would not boot. Then the second but this time it booted. So I tried the third slot and it booted again. Now I put the Ram in the first slot and tried starting, surprise once again because it worked. Now confused even more because it works when it wants to.

So I put all the Ram back in and tried starting it and it worked. I thought okay maybe a loose connection and its good now.
Now I decided to put the side panel on but had to plug in two 120mm fans first. I plugged the first one in and then the second. Tried starting the PC to make sure they worked and nothing. WTF!

A few weeks ago I could smell something burning from the computer. Thought the fans were clogged and cleaned it out. Later that day I walked into the living and saw the PC smoking. I ran over and unplugged it. When I opened the case the smoke was coming from the power supply.

I got a new power supply with more juice (500watts) and plugged it in. Worked fine.

Later while I was at work I had Susan try to start it and surprise it would not start. OMG!!!! Mind you when I start the PC and it does not boot I have to turn it off via the power supply. When it does boot I use the power button.

When I came home for work I tried the PC and it would not start. I just received a new power supply for a home server I am building same model Corsair just 430watts. I plugged it into the mobo and 1 hard drive only and it worked.

Now I am wondering if this is a power supply issue or mobo? My friend said the mobo because it sounded like certain sectors were failing but not the whole thing yet.

Here are the PC's specs:
Asus P5N-D mobo
Intel Quad Core Q9500
4x 2Gig OCZ DDR3 Ram
1x 500GB sata drive
1x 80GB IDE drive
1x DVD RW
1x GeForce 9500GT 1GB
1X Audiology sound card
7x 120mm Fans
After market CPU cooler

Any and all help would be great. Sorry it is so long. Thanks.

Jonathan
 
This is an interesting problem.

So, let me get this straight: you had a power supply burn up, you replaced it with one of similar or greater wattage, correct?

Then the machine began shutting down for unknown reasons and would not power up unless you did some kind of rearranging of things inside, but this 'fix' wouldn't last, correct?

I am thinking that your power supply is going into protective shutdown. Try this-- next time it turns itself off (and won't power on), try unplugging the power supply from the mains, then waiting a good 15 seconds or so before plugging back in. See if it will power on then.

If this is the case, then something may be drawing too much current; the hard part will be determining what is doing it.
 
In the 3 weeks with the new power supply this is the first time it shut down in the middle of the night.

I believe the new PS is slightly higher wattage but can't remember how much the last one was.

I could power it on and sometimes couldn't and it was so random. It did seem like whenever I moved things around it would work. I did most of the time unplug the power cord from the PS when I moved parts around.

The problem is if it powers on I do not know when it will shutdown. Didn't do this for 3 weeks and I can't sit and watch it. Plus I would be afraid it might burn out or something.

Do you think this PS does not have enough power? Or maybe when the last one burnt out it screwed up the mobo?

Thanks.
 
Power supply and Motherboard

Hi, I am M Athar Fiaz.
i have read your problem, here's the thing, if your last PS was motherboard supported (because some of the power supplys are motherboard supported), then it would have caused your motherboard a problem, and if it was not, then it would be a problem of RAM.
try this:
unplug you rams one by one and check wheather the system remains on or not, after that try to plug in one by one, if the problem is in RAM then you would know that which one is conflicting with other, after doing that, if the problem is still there try unpluging all the hardware one by one, by doing that you will automatically diagnose the problem.
 
What brand and model was this replacement 500W you got? Sounds like your first power supply burned out and the replacement took a dump on you.
 
Well smoke coming out of the first one was not a good thing. Means it didnt trip when something burned/shorted, in other words it kept going and burning, lol. Doing that can burn out hardware. But since it ran fine for awhile with a new supply, I would say it didnt. My (guess) is you just had bad luck and the replacement is failing.

I just put a Corsair CX500 in one a few days ago.
 
I have no idea what the new guy is saying...

At any rate, it is entirely possible that the original power supply going 'kablooey' did do damage to the motherboard (or, as StrangleHold hinted, the motherboard may have actually damaged the power supply, instead).
 
No, I am agreeing with StrangleHold that there is a possibility that your motherboard is damaged.

Do you know what a capacitor looks like? They are little cans that sit on the motherboard. There should be a cluster of them probably near the processor socket. The larger ones will be embossed on the top with a pattern to allow it to bulge out or expel its electrolyte away from other components if there is catastrophic failure.

Look at the images in the wiki and on the BadCaps sites: Google search: bulging caps.

If you see bulging on the capacitors on your motherboard or other signs of damage, then your motherboard is damaged.

If the problem is just bad capacitors, then it is fixable, but only if you have the requisite soldering skills and abilities (if you don't know what a capacitor is, then you probably don't have those skills). You could send the board to Bad Caps, and they can replace them for you (for a fee, of course), or you could use this event as an excuse to upgrade your system (better idea, though more expensive).
 
Well I checked the capacitors and they are all good. None are bulging any where on the mobo. Still the mobo or power supply?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top