Had a nice PC built and working for sometime, however today it started booting up, died, and now won't post. Nothing, no power LED on front of case, nothing.
Its an Asus P5K-VM mobo, Intel 7200, 2GB ram WD Scorpio HD and M-Audio Audiophile 192 sound card. I'm powering it with a Seasonic SS-300TFX, which is a funny shaped mini TFX format PSU and aren't too common.
Today I come back from a few days holiday, turn it on, I saw it the Linux boot loader, come back 5 mins later, its off and refuses to turn on. On further investigation, with the power cable in there is a small LED on inside on the PCI riser board. So some power must be going through it. I tried shorting the SW Power jumper, in case it was just the switch that was dead, but no joy.
Any ideas? Dead PSU? TFX PSU's are pretty rare, but I may be able to borrow a normal ATX one tomorrow to help diagnose the issue. Or does the mobo trigger them on/off somehow?
Could we be looking at a mobo failure? Or something else?
System won't start anymore? PSU died?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Does your mobo have any beep diagnostics? Do you have any hardware diagnostic tools?
I'd work through those first, otherwise you're going to have to do a brute force search.
Disconnect all drives from power and data.
Swap out the PSU if you have a spare.
If not, yank every SDRAM module, and place one of them in, trying every last DIMM slot until you get a boot. If it boots, try the same with the next SDRAM module. If you work through all your SDRAM modules, then move onto cards.
Do the same with all your cards, use the IGP if it's available.
Failing that, swap the CPU.
I'd work through those first, otherwise you're going to have to do a brute force search.
Disconnect all drives from power and data.
Swap out the PSU if you have a spare.
If not, yank every SDRAM module, and place one of them in, trying every last DIMM slot until you get a boot. If it boots, try the same with the next SDRAM module. If you work through all your SDRAM modules, then move onto cards.
Do the same with all your cards, use the IGP if it's available.
Failing that, swap the CPU.
No beeps nothing. The only indication of life is just one LED on the PCI riser board. No LED's come on, on the front of the case (Power or HD). Don't have any diagnostic tools. 
A friends is bringing me a spare PSU into work tomorrow. Will try that.
There's just two Geil 1Gb DDR2 sticks in there, I'll try swapping them tonight.
Already tried it with no DVD drive. I'll try without the HD tonight.
A friends is bringing me a spare PSU into work tomorrow. Will try that.
There's just two Geil 1Gb DDR2 sticks in there, I'll try swapping them tonight.
Already tried it with no DVD drive. I'll try without the HD tonight.
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xan_user
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I had the same symtoms, mine was caused by an electrical brown out and it wasn't on a ups, so the mobo failed.Arfa wrote:No beeps nothing. The only indication of life is just one LED on the PCI riser board. No LED's come on, on the front of the case (Power or HD). Don't have any diagnostic tools.
pull the battery and all but one ram stick and cpu and clear the cmos?
if that doesn't work with your buds psu, im afraid its dead.
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NeilBlanchard
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Hi,
Here's a quick test for the PSU: disconnect all the connectors from the system, take a short piece of wire (like a paper clip), and stick one end in the green wire on the large ATX connector, and stick the other end into one of the black wires next to it -- then switch it on. If it spins up the fan, then your PSU is likely okay.
Here's a quick test for the PSU: disconnect all the connectors from the system, take a short piece of wire (like a paper clip), and stick one end in the green wire on the large ATX connector, and stick the other end into one of the black wires next to it -- then switch it on. If it spins up the fan, then your PSU is likely okay.
Mine did that - total brick with the power light working. Drives and fans would spin up but nothing else. Turned out to be that the thermal grease had failed on the CPU due to age. If your CPU has a thermal protection circuit in it, it would likely do what you described - work for a couple of minutes and then power off.
Let it sit for an hour or so and try it again after clearing the CMOS manually. If it works and then dies, it's either the CPU or MB.
Let it sit for an hour or so and try it again after clearing the CMOS manually. If it works and then dies, it's either the CPU or MB.
sounds like what happened during my new build. Take out the motherboard and try to start it outside of the case. The motherboard might be shorting out on the case. For me it was the back of the motherboard hitting the tray so I put a piece of notebook paper behind the motherboard and now have no more problems.
Tried yanking memory out and replacing it - no difference.
However I tried another PSU and it fired up fine! So yep, must be PSU. Tried shorting the green'n'black wires to see it it starts up in its own right and nothing.
At least I know what it is now, just need to source a new PSU. Anyone know anyone stocking a Seasonic SS-300TFX PSU in the UK? All I can find is FSP ones, which I've read are noisier and less efficient. Found a retailer in Germany, but its gonna be £60 quid delivered!
Thanks everyone for the tips!
However I tried another PSU and it fired up fine! So yep, must be PSU. Tried shorting the green'n'black wires to see it it starts up in its own right and nothing.
At least I know what it is now, just need to source a new PSU. Anyone know anyone stocking a Seasonic SS-300TFX PSU in the UK? All I can find is FSP ones, which I've read are noisier and less efficient. Found a retailer in Germany, but its gonna be £60 quid delivered!
Thanks everyone for the tips!