Dead PC

[Lemur]

Ugh. Just at the start of the weekend, too. Little lemur boy will be crushed that he can't play Left4Dead.

Here's the deal: Can't get to POST. Press the power button, nothing happens.

Power supply seems to be fine; plug it in and the LED on the mobo lights up. I suspect the mobo is also okay, but can't prove it. Maybe something went out in the wire between the power button and the mobo? The PC was in hibernation mode, not shut down, when it went black.

Ideas? This is rural Wisconsin, so I can't hope to get it into a shop before Monday, which suxxors.

[Husar]

Try taking out the RAM sticks one by one? Could be that one failed I think.
Otherwise I'd suspect the mainboard since it should at least try to start if the RAMs are okay and there is a working graphics card IIRC.
RAM and graphics card are what I'd check first anyway.

Hope you can work this out.

[Lemur]

Yep, tried the RAM. No dice. Suspicion drifts toward the motherboard ...

[Beskar]

Is the power button broken? Tried resetting CMOS ?

[Lemur]

Good idea with the CMOS. I'll go give it a shot right now.

-edit-

Popped the battery, then put it back in. Still no joy. I think the fact that it's not even reaching POST means some sort of catastrophic hardware failure, likely the mobo. Hmm, I wonder if this means it's time to put a low-end I7 in the case? Hmmm. Nah, that would mean new RAM as well as mobo and proc. I guess I'll see what the problem is before I decide.

[LeftEyeNine]

Lemur, why not trying to remove the screws of the motherboard, place some static clothing underneath and trying to run the PC?

I for one experienced that myself.

[Lemur]

A buddy of mine who runs a PC repair shop has agreed to take a look at it Monday, so we'll see what we see. This is all a lot simpler when you have a workbench where you can slap components in and out to see what's the problem.

Still, no PC gaming for the weekend.

[Xiahou]

My guess would be mobo or power supply.. but I don't think I could rule out CPU either. If it was bad RAM, you'd probably be getting some kind of beep code when you attempted to power on.

[Crandaeolon]

Power supplies lose some of their power generating capability as they age, so I'd guess power supply, especially if it's not new and there wasn't much wattage headroom. A similar thing happened to me just this spring, though my computer eventually managed to boot after a couple of minutes warming up.

[LeftEyeNine]

Btw, did you leave any USB sticks inserted ?

[caravel]

Is it doing absolutely nothing when you press the power button? Do any lights light up or fans spin up?

Remove everything and just fire up the motherboard withoutout memory - just install the CPU and keep it connected to the monitor. If all is well you should get nothing on the display but you should hear a repetitive error beep and the fans should spin. Power it down ad try it again with the memory and see if it POSTs. Otherwise you can be pretty sure it's your motherboard or PSU that is at fault. Even with a dead CPU, you usually get some fans spinning but nothing else. What about your HDD(s) and optical drive(s) do they fire up?

If you do mean that absolutely nothing happens. Then you might be on to something when you say that the power button connection might be the problem. Do you have an other old case lying around? If so connect the power button from that case into your motherboard and see if you can power up using that. Check the front panel connections carefully as well as the system buzzer might be disconnected also.

You say you tried removing the CMOS battery? Does the board have a clear CMOS jumper? Try shorting the jumper and power up with the CMOS batter removed. Leave it for about a minute like this as it takes time for the nvram to completely clear. Next cycle power again and remove the kettle lead from the psu. Hold down the power button to get rid of any residual power. Put the CMOS battery back in and try powering up again - with just the CPU and memory and connected to the monitor (so install the graphics card if you have no onboard vga or otherwise use the onboard).

Can you try another PSU from another PC?

If that doesn't work then I'm out of ideas and I suspect the motherboard has been damaged - perhaps by a power surge.

[Lemur]

Just came back from my friend's shop, it's definitely the mobo. We plugged in a known-to-be-good power supply and still no joy. Then we attempted to restart the machine directly from the mobo. No dice.

Damn you, Abit!

-edit-

My geek pal tried to convince me that this was the "perfect excuse" to move to I7. We took a look at the prices, and I nixed it. Sticking with socket 975 for now, no need to replace proc or RAM. Tempting, but no.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Time to start saving up the pennies.

[Lemur]

Eh, I'm a big fan of nursing your rig with minimal upgrades for as long as possible. New mobo is in, and I popped for a terabyte HD as long as we were mucking about. I'll move my old 500 gig into the Mac.

The entire operation cost less than $200, which is great. My buddy wouldn't accept any money for his time and skill, just muttering the ominous words, "Maybe I'll ask you for a favor sometime ...."

Shades of Godfather 1, if you ask me.

[Husar]

Glad you got it working Lemur but it seems your Pc set a bad precedent...

Started my PC today, everything was normal, and right in the process of doubleclicking the COH:OP shortcut in SteamI got a blue screen, first one in Vista I think. IIRC it said IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and at the bottom mentioned an usbsomething.sys.
Restarted and there was nothing
Fans fired up, HDD seems to work as well, no beeps but a blank screen, turned it of, tried again, same thing but now the graphics card fan always goes to full power and stays there. Thought the GPU might be fried.
Then I had an idea, why not try the integrated graphics, took the GPU out and connected the monitor to the mainboard DVI, but same thing, blank screen, thought okay, they're disabled in the BIOS so I tried resetting CMOS, no go, put the GPU back in, still nothing but the fan now goes to full speed, slower again, back to full speed etc.

So I fear it might also be the mainboard, if anyone has some advice I'd appreciate it because taking the whole PC to the shop requires me to call, and pay for, a taxi so if a component could be isolated and exchanged that might be a big help.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Eh, I'm a big fan of nursing your rig with minimal upgrades for as long as possible. New mobo is in, and I popped for a terabyte HD as long as we were mucking about. I'll move my old 500 gig into the Mac.

The entire operation cost less than $200, which is great. My buddy wouldn't accept any money for his time and skill, just muttering the ominous words, "Maybe I'll ask you for a favor sometime ...."

Shades of Godfather 1, if you ask me.

"I need you to take care of the new Apple Store owner."