PC lights on but nobody home

From:	ANT_THOMAS	21 Jul 2015 23:48
To:	milko	21 of 60

41538.21 In reply to 41538.20
When it does nothing, the PSU doesn't power up? Sounding like a PSU on its way out. A

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From:	william (WILLIAMA)	21 Jul 2015 23:48
To:	milko	22 of 60

41538.22 In reply to 41538.19
Broken and/or stuck power switch? You can bypass the switch by ~~stabbing wildly at the motherboard~~ shorting the two pins that the power lead from the switch is plugged onto, with a screwdriver. If the PC turns on, the switch is faulty. The relevant wire will be a very fine twisted pair and probably have PWR written on the plastic plug bit in itty bitty writing. It may also be silk-screened on the mobo near the pins. never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead

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From:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	21 Jul 2015 23:48
To:	milko	23 of 60

41538.23 In reply to 41538.20
I've had bad hdds totally nix a pc posting (not stopped power on though). ---- "Giant pig hot air balloon crashes after tangling with a cowboy-shaped one"

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From:	william (WILLIAMA)	22 Jul 2015 00:04
To:	milko	24 of 60

41538.24 In reply to 41538.20
Nah, forget the pins thing, I didn't spot that you left the paper clip in. Although shorting the pins will work. So all the power stuff worked, fans on etc. until you plugged a hard drive in? never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead

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From:	milko	22 Jul 2015 08:39
To:	william (WILLIAMA)	25 of 60

41538.25 In reply to 41538.24
Yes... But once I unplugged it again (and I'd had the same HDD on moments earlier no problem) it still wouldn't work. So unless it outright killed the PSU, I dunno. My mobo has a power button on the board itself so I'm reasonably satisfied the case isn't a problem.

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From:	milko	22 Jul 2015 10:14
To:	milko	26 of 60

41538.26 In reply to 41538.25
This morning, I tried PSU with paperclip plugged into nothing and it switched on at correct voltages again. Then I went to work.

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From:	william (WILLIAMA)	22 Jul 2015 11:56
To:	milko	27 of 60

41538.27 In reply to 41538.26
When I found myself with a similar dilemma a few weeks ago, I was happy that the motherboard was faulty as the multimeter readings for the PSU were fine and it powered a hard drive, fans etc perfectly well when not connected to the board. It was also a reasonably expensive item even if not quite up there with yours. However, I decided that I couldn't be sure, and as I hadn't done any PC building for ages I bought a new motherboard/CPU/memory and a new PSU. The old CPU was an early i5 and as compatible second hand motherboards are stupidly expensive, I couldn't reuse it. I was then left with the old PSU which I used to build a second PC/Server using an old Athlon 64 and motherboard from the I-can't-throw-that-away pile. I learned a lot about the fibs told by Nvidia and several mobo manufacturers about how much memory the early Nforce chipset/bios combo could support (up to 4GB but only if you could find memory modules that nobody actually made) and had fun playing with it until it started making crackly noises and finally the PSU burst into flame with a loud bang. So my present theory is that the PSU may well have killed the original motherboard by serving up generous portions of voltage at inappropriate moments. Of course, I then decided to buy an ultra cheap PSU and discovered that I could make use of my old i5 and memory with a new motherboard from Gearbest who manufacture a whole range of boards based on old chipsets for a far more reasonable price than second hand ones fetch on ebay. Expensive things computers. never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead

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From:	milko	22 Jul 2015 12:22
To:	william (WILLIAMA)	28 of 60

41538.28 In reply to 41538.27
My motherboard, CPU, RAM and PSU are all second hand from the same bloke, who has the most ridiculous leading-edge kit all the time and sells it on as soon as the bleeding edge moves on. While this means I got good stuff cheap it does leave me with a bit of a replacement dilemma, should I ever get to the bottom of this mystery. I doubt I'll go like-for-like in quality on any of it. But yeah, first I have to figure out this nonsense. I suppose tonight I'll go through the whole chain again but maybe only plug in the SSD drive and not the mechanical one at first. Or something.

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From:	milko	22 Jul 2015 21:03
To:	ALL	29 of 60

41538.29
Ok. Set the whole power chain up again. If I plug in everything but the motherboard, and short the ATX pins with a paperclip, it powers on. So, motherboard failing, right? Switched it off again to think about the next thing I can do. Except I just thought "oh yeah, recheck voltage" and went back to it and now it will NOT power on. Wtf? Argh!

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From:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	22 Jul 2015 21:11
To:	milko	30 of 60

41538.30 In reply to 41538.29
Did you try another psu already? Starting to sound like it's your problem. ---- "Giant pig hot air balloon crashes after tangling with a cowboy-shaped one"

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From:	milko	22 Jul 2015 21:23
To:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	31 of 60

41538.31 In reply to 41538.30
Would have to buy one to do that I think (though I'll raid the server room at work tomorrow just to check) so I'm trying to avoid it until I'm sure. It is increasingly more likely... But I kinda feel like the motherboard or something on it could yet be the culprit somehow. After leaving it a while then trying again it switches on and let's me read a good voltage. It really seems that connecting the motherboard is the step that jiggers it and puts the PSU into some kind of safety mode that shuts off the power for a bit.

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From:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	22 Jul 2015 21:44
To:	milko	32 of 60

41538.32 In reply to 41538.31
Maybe it has overheating protection. Does it get noticeably warm? ---- "Giant pig hot air balloon crashes after tangling with a cowboy-shaped one"

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From:	milko	22 Jul 2015 22:22
To:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	33 of 60

41538.33 In reply to 41538.32
Nope. Also a cold start plugged in is a fail, but while I've got it running in whatever form I can leave it for plenty of time no trouble.

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From:	william (WILLIAMA)	22 Jul 2015 23:19
To:	milko	34 of 60

41538.34 In reply to 41538.33
Your theory looks pretty good. I see that the BeQuiet P8 1200W has several clever protective measures which a broken motherboard would probably trigger - like short circuit/under voltage/over voltage etc. etc. all of which turn the PSU off (and probably keep it off for a while). http://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/10 Edit: not sure that link's right, but I think the tech details are the same. Edit Edit: the link's OK never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead

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From:	milko	23 Jul 2015 11:33
To:	william (WILLIAMA)	35 of 60

41538.35 In reply to 41538.34
Yeah. Looks like. Hm. Nevertheless, I've ordered a PSU, my thinking being that I can potentially be careful about unpacking and connecting it to the minimal setup (including motherboard) and if it still fails, return it. Whereas if I get a new motherboard and that still fails I'm stuck with it. No luck on a PSU scrounge in the office so it's done. I really hope it is the PSU because the motherboard's current version costs £275 fucking pounds, there is no way that's getting matched. I wonder what level of downgrade I can get without missing something noticeable.

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From:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	23 Jul 2015 14:42
To:	milko	36 of 60

41538.36 In reply to 41538.35
I can't believe you BYO and don't have an old, undead PSU squirreled away. :-S ---- "Giant pig hot air balloon crashes after tangling with a cowboy-shaped one"

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From:	milko	23 Jul 2015 17:06
To:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	37 of 60

41538.37 In reply to 41538.36
Like I say, small flat, big clear out when the baby arrived. I gave the near-complete remains of my PCs previous incarnation to my brother in law.

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From:	koswix	23 Jul 2015 21:34
To:	milko	38 of 60

41538.38 In reply to 41538.37

Plenty of room for bikes, though.


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If Feds call you and say something bad on me, it may prove what I said are truth, they are afraid of it.

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From:	milko	23 Jul 2015 22:06
To:	koswix	39 of 60

41538.39 In reply to 41538.38
I have a small shed exclusively reserved for my two plus all their kit, yup. There is actually still a box of PC gubbins around somewhere, but no PSU in there, it's more obscure bits of cabling and whatnot.

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From:	CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)	24 Jul 2015 02:02
To:	milko	40 of 60

41538.40 In reply to 41538.39
Fess up. The super-annuated PSU is buried in a nearby vacant lot with all kinds of valuable shit your wife can't know about/in your bff's broom closet /with the spare tire in your car. STOP FUCKING LYING. ---- "Giant pig hot air balloon crashes after tangling with a cowboy-shaped one"

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