Case fans spin for 1 second then stop, no boot HELP!!!

Got a shopping cart of parts that you want opinions on? Get advice from members on your planned or existing system (or upgrade).

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Case fans spin for 1 second then stop, no boot HELP!!!

Post by GamingGod » Thu Jan 01, 2009 2:02 pm

Hi I just built a new gaming computer on thanksgiving and it worked fine until now. So about 1 month. On occasion it would shut down by itself, like it lost power, but the monitor would continue to have power and its on the same power strip.

I was thinking that something isn't grounded properly as it's setting off the psu protection where I have to flip the power supply switch before I can again hit start and have it spin for 1 second. Video Card, Case, and PSU fans all spin for 1 second.

I took the power supply out of the case, reseated the heatsink, moved the ram to different slots. Nothing has worked. Could this be a bad piece of RAM, cpu, or psu?

Components

q6600 G0 stock
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
TRUE heatsink
4 gig corsair generic ram
wd 640gb black
evga 260gtx 216 vanilla
corsair 520hx

The only thing I can think to try now is take components from my internet computer and replace cpu, psu, motherboard, or ram to see if one is faulty?

Would one of these components being bad cause this kind of problem?

I would appreciate any suggestions you could give because I really hate to have to take this working computer apart in hopes of finding what is going on with the other one.

FartingBob
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 744
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:05 am
Location: London
Contact:

Post by FartingBob » Thu Jan 01, 2009 2:11 pm

I recently had exactly the same problem with a low power file server. I swapped out everything except the board and CPU. So i presumed it was the board that was faulty.
You can test any PSU without plugging it into a board using a paper clip, does the PSU stay on then?

Eventually i worked out what my problem was and a cheap solution.
I made a paper washer ring for each screw holding the board to the case, then slid a piece of paper behind to completely seperate the motherboard from the case. Obviously it was being short circuited somewhere. Now it works fine.

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Thu Jan 01, 2009 2:30 pm

I did the paper clip thing and the psu fan runs fine with nothing connected to it. Does that mean its the cpu or motherboard?

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Thu Jan 01, 2009 2:51 pm

No one else has any ideas? What could cause a system to only power up for 1 second?

Riffer
Posts: 517
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 4:14 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Post by Riffer » Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:21 pm

Make sure nothing is shorting the back of the motherboard.

Unplug any unecessary connectors and try to boot boot with only the PSU, Mobo, CPU, Memory and Video.

oso
Posts: 38
Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:05 am

Post by oso » Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:37 pm

I had the exact same problem when I built my computer. Finally figured out that the computer wasn't drawing enough power to keep the PS going.
I would try a different power supply even if the paper clip trick worked.

NeilBlanchard
Moderator
Posts: 7681
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Maynard, MA, Eaarth
Contact:

Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Jan 01, 2009 7:46 pm

Hi,

You can try resetting the BIOS? Maybe, you have to up the voltage on the RAM, and/or the CPU?

However, this can be an indicator of a problem with the motherboard -- the power supply section is failing, possibly.

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:59 pm

Update:

I taped a piece of paper behind the motherboard and reinstalled everything and it works! So I guess it was shorting out.

Unfortunately now it has developed a new problem. Every 2-3 seconds the mouse stutters. This is consistent, it is happening exactly every 2-3 seconds. The sound seemed to stutter some too. Any ideas?

jhhoffma
Posts: 2131
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:00 am
Location: Grand Rapids, MI

Post by jhhoffma » Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:10 am

I think you have some issues there. You may want to investigate RMA'ing that board. If you've properly secured your motherboard to the case using stand-offs and the ATX connector is securely connected, you should not have any shorts. Also, check you case (particularly the USB connectors) to make sure they are grounded. I've seen some people short out their mobo with a bad USB connector.

Navvie
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:15 am
Location: United Kingdom

Post by Navvie » Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:35 pm

Was the PC previously overclocked?
If you haven't reset the BIOS I would suggest doing so now.

Do you have another PC you can try your components in, or vice versa other components to try in your PC?

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:17 am

Update:
After putting the paper behind the motherboard it seems to be fine. The motherboard has a metal bar on the back to hold on the north bridge, and I also had a back plate for my TRUE. I wrapped the back plate of the TRUE with electric tape but I don't think that was the problem.

Also noteworthy the TRUE was loose so I put a rubber washer between the retention mechanism and heat sink to tighten it up. (It dropped temps about 6 degrees!) But it also makes the motherboard curve ever so slightly. I think that because the board was slightly warped the north bridge bar was shorting on the case.

The mouse stopped skipping after a reboot. I had booted with "Last good settings" and I think I had an IRQ conflict or something because I changed the SATA plug for my hard drive.

As of now its fine. No crashing. Unless noted otherwise it's cured.

Hopefully the paper behind the motherboard won't catch fire or anything.

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:21 am

Ok same problem came back. But now the fans dont even spin for a second. Only get a millisecond of a flash from the led on the mobo. Disconnected the power supply and shorted the green and black wires and the fan spins for 1 second then stops. Does this mean the power supply is dead?

GamingGod
Posts: 2057
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2002 9:52 pm
Location: United States, Mobile, AL

Post by GamingGod » Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:33 pm

Well corsair sent me a new power supply. Pretty fast turnaround too, as its only been like 2-3 weeks. Everything hooked up and it boots. So far so good. Hopefully it will stay this way.

Post Reply