The great debate (PSU or Mobo)?

goasakawa

Im happily moving my lab to another location (across town) and made sure I carried my main PC (AMD 64 3000+/2G/200G HD/MSI Neo Mobo) on the side. Before I set it in storage I made sure all power plugs, sockets and cables were secure.... THEN I leave it alone for about 3-4 days. I get it out of storage, recheck it again and plug it up.

Visual Symptom: When I push the ATX power button it powers the fans, mod lighs, cpu fan for 1 second then owers off. No POST beep. No CD/HD Activity.

Weird Thing: Whats odd is that my Power button/indicator LED (directly connected to the the mobo) is constanlty flashing on and off.

So do you think its the Mobo or the PSU? I dont really have any testing tools on hand. Whats your 2 cents?

jescab

i would say mobo or CPU

RussS

Possibly something else ...

I would try some basic troubleshooting here. Remove all cards from the machine - reset the RAM and see what happens.

jdog29

Odds are it is the power supply. I recently worked on a computer with bad power supply. It would power on everything for few seconds and then shut off. The 12v rail was real low. It was a light Power supply which mean it is crappy. I would never buy a light power supply and one below 16a on the +12v rail. I like the Antec Power Supplies, very sturdy and lots of juice. If you can get a cheap multimeter you can test it out and see if you get any readings. Good Luck

JDog29

Plantwiz

RussS wrote:

Possibly something else ...

I would try some basic troubleshooting here. Remove all cards from the machine - reset the RAM and see what happens.

Start at the begining!


It is easy for boards to become slightly dislodged - even though it seems as though it shouldn't happen....IT DOES.

Since your best course will be to reseat everything...EVERY CABLE, EVERY CARD, Might as well take it down to basics like RussS is suggesting.

MOBO, CPU, PS, RAM, Video, nothing else...

See what happens, and slowly begin adding ONE (1) component at a time....of course, if it doesn't POST with the above configuration, there is no need to install anything else


Without seeing it, it will be difficult to say it is a PS absolutely. While it can be a PS, that hasn't been the first item to fail in my years of servicing systems.

With power to lights, etc.. but no post code..I'm leaning toward, HDD, Mobo, or bad/unseated card. A jumper could have jiggled loose and now your boot order is unable to complete...though you did mention you are not even hitting a post code.


Back to the basics!!! - and post back what you figure out!

Ricka182

I say power supply........

Webmaster

Could be a mobo or CPU problem though, and I've had very similar symptoms with a badly seated piece of RAM, but unless you get any beeps or lit leds on the D-bracket it's probably the power supply.

www.msicomputer.com/support/sup_tshoot.asp

goasakawa

Looks like it was the PSU. I did have a 550W "Made In God Know Where" unit. I can remember actually using the gaming rig maybe 20 times since it was built with no problems but after my power was restored [from the dum hurricane Katrina] I borrowed a used psu and it worked. The old-dead psu would only put out 5v according to the meter it borrowed as well. The other lines where dead. Im just glad it wasnt my mobo because I still regret spending that much money on it when I coulda went to newegg. hehe