Aaaagh! PC Down. Suggestions?

[Fidcal]

Aaaagh! PC Down. Suggestions?

Switched on PC this morning, busied myself with coffee, etc. then noticed monitor still black - says no signal. Groan - probably forgot to switch it on, that happens now and again. Nope, blue light on push switch. Monitor still no signal. OK, Windows is really slow to bootup and sometimes it surprises me that I think more time has passed than it has so I wait. Monitor changes from 'no signal' to rapidly flickering cursor at top left. That's not right. I never see that these days. My PC hides POST unless I press a key, Del I think. And the cursor is not pulsing normally but very rapid.

 

I sigh and decide the morning is a bit cool and maybe a fresh start will clear it. Switch off the 0/1 power at the back. Wait ten seconds or so (I never switch electronic apparatus off and on rapidly.) Then switch power 0/1 back to on. Press start button. Nothing. Totally dead. Normally that start button glows blue when the PC is on or booting up.

 

Check power connection - OK. I see my external USB-powered drive light is flickering rapidly so power is getting through. Then I see two tiny LEDS below what I think is another USB port on the front of my PC I'd forgotten about. My tower is on the floor so it's hard to see down there.

 

There were no error beeps during boot up - I never left the machine. In fact I don't recall hearing the fan (more on that later.)

 

Wait 5 minutes - no different.

 

Check room temperature on my radio clock - 65F. OK... so that's probably the coldest morning since last winter.

 

Here's my guess: Maybe a fan is a bit squiffy and runs slow when cold. Maybe it's the processor fan or graphics card? That in turn means processor overheats and either burns out or triggers a safety cutout until processor cools off.

 

Is that a reasonable guess? What to do? Try again in an hour? If no good, open her up and remove fluff from fans. I don't fancy oiling the processor fan. I've done that loads of times on older machines but I've never even had the side off this one.

 

AMD Phenom 4 x 512K L2 cache PC is about 3 years old. Runs Vista.

Motherboard ASUS Crosshair II formula

Graphics card: 1024MB GEFORCE GTX280 PCI Express

 

Back on my old XP in the back room but all my stuff is on the new machine. Lucky I uploaded my campaign level to SVN last night but the next chapter of my fanfic story is on the internal drive and no external backup. What a prat. I'm sure even if the PC is not worth salvaging I can rip out the hard drive and recover my stuff but it's the hassle. I can't work properly.

 

OK, an hour since I started so I'll go in the other room and see if she powers up yet..... Nope. Temperature in there has now dropped to 64F. Makes sense I suppose. It's around 8:15am and sunny outside but it's likely much colder out there so still sucking heat out of the building. I'm reluctant to put on central heating as I'm comfortable for now and anyway, it's really slow to get going.

[Sotha]

Open the case and examine the motherboard visually. Are all components looking fine? Check if some of the capacitors (the water-tower looking thingies) have leaked nasty gooey stuff out. Did you smell something burning around the last successful power-on?

 

Motherboard died? PSU failure?

[Obsttorte]

on some motherboards they are lamps that submit error messages (as you have no error tones as you said)

you could also try to start the pc while your case is open to see if all the fans are moving, if one is not, this will probably cause the error

(as you said, if the cpu gets to hot, the pc just goes out)

If nothings happening, remove every component which is not needed for boot and try again

but as you are not even getting any signal tones, it could also be an error in the motherboard

you can just try out to find the component that's causing the error

 

EDIT: how much is 65 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius?

 

EDIT2: nevermind, just looked it up

Edited October 14, 2012 by Obsttorte

[Fidcal]

Yeah looks like I'll have to open it up and blunder my way.

 

I googled for asus crosshair ii error lights but no quick sensible help could I find.

[Obsttorte]

don't you hae a manual?

 

I had similar problems for two times, now. And it was always the motherboard, so ...

 

EDIT: did you change anything in the BIOS

Edited October 14, 2012 by Obsttorte

[dumpkin]

If not already done, check if your graphics card and other components are still nicely in their slot, also do this for every cable.

My pc wasn't totally dead yet, but your first description sounds familiar to me, the reason of it was my graphics card has a loose contact.

[Fidcal]

I can't see any problem inside. There was some dust around the fans but not enough to stop them. I cleared it away but it's no different. I've not changed any settings. It's completely dead apart from the flickering LED. No fans work at all. The manual only says -if it's dead but there's an LED lit then check the power lead, fuse, or else replace the psu. Since it's only a matter of time until I upgrade I'm thinking the easiest and quickest solution is to get a new machine early, get that up and running, then get a psu. If it works then use it as a backup.

[Radiant]

It really sounds like the PSU or graphics card (which is the first in boot up and perhaps shows the flickering cursor) is dead... If it is a bursted capacitors, like Sotha has mentioned it you may can press the power switch, wait 5 minutes, until the remaining capacitors are at full charge, then press the power switch again and the computer boots up normally. It would explain looong boot up times as well I think.

 

About having too high temperatures at boot up: Don't worry, you can boot up CPUs without a cooler on it, as long as you only boot and turn it off after some minutes. Also the last thing which most of the times gets blown is the CPU. (Except for high overclocking.)

 

Anyway, follow Obsttorte's and Sotha's instructions...

Edited October 14, 2012 by Radiant

[Bikerdude]

It really sounds like the PSU or graphics card

A faulty PSU will do this type of thing every time, I had the same thing with mine and had to replace it.

 

Have you got a mate locally with a PSU you tester or spare psu..? (I have both, if your not too far i can take a spin up there.)

[lost_soul]

Another vote here for a bad PSU if the fans won't start. Also, some PSUs have LEDs on the back of them that come on if they're functioning properly. You should look for that. I did have one system though that just up and died one day in a similar manor. The previous day, it performed flawlessly (shutdown included). The next day, it wouldn't start at all (including the fans). That PSU was fine though and most of the parts from that box made it into other boxes and are still functional. It was the motherboard.

 

So, it is either the motherboard or the PSU, but since the PSU is orders of magnitude easier to replace than the mobo, try PSU first. Of course it helps if you've got spare crap lying around (video cards, PSUs, etc) for testing. I've got a spare PSU and am in the Stockton CA area if you're local and want to borrow it.

Edited October 15, 2012 by lost_soul

[Fidcal]

Thanks for help. I might come back at a later date. Meanwhile I'm concerned about recovering data from the hard drive. I'll start a new thread...

[lost_soul]

You can remove your HD from the dead system and connect it to the XP box.

If you're worried about messing up one of the OSs that are installed on the drives, grab yourself a copy of Knoppix, a copy of Unetbootin, a USB thumb drive of at least 1 GB, and go nuts. If you're not familiar with Linux, Knoppix gives you a full desktop out of the box, where you can mount (access) your NTFS drives and copy your files to any USB or shared folder on another machine.

Edited October 14, 2012 by lost_soul

[demagogue]

I have no advice for you. Only you have my sympathies. Good luck!

[stumpy]

i had a motherboard die on me, worked out that the memory cards had welded themselves to the motherboard. Found that out when taking computer to bits, memory cards could not be removed.

[fllood]

My fan had a short circuit three weeks ago ... killing my MB... resulting that I had to build a new Sys.

I had to install all programs new, but at least all harddisks and their data kept intact and undamaged by the circuit. The Sys had been fairly old so it may was only a matter of time.

The good site now all is setup again:

TDM runs with smooth fps now where it didn't before

[Bikerdude]

Thanks for help. I might come back at a later date. Meanwhile I'm concerned about recovering data from the hard drive. I'll start a new thread...

its unlickly the drive will have been damaged. if the drive isntly clicking then your good to go, just plonk it in another PC.

 

Fids I have plenty of spare kit, and being a puter engineer I am in a position to help out physicaly if need be.

[Fidcal]

Thanks all. Believe it or not, my second PC (this one) was down most of today as well! I booted up BartPE which is a linux CD and maybe I exited uncleanly but somehow the hard drive on this PC was giving i/o errors and wouldn't boot! Finally sorted it out with a 2-floppy version of Partition Magic but it took me all morning and into the afternoon.

 

I've finally copied over my fictions stories, and my email box. Still can't find my darkmod folders and campaign folder.

 

I've placed an order with Amazon for new PC but I checked with my bank and they say no request for money received so I don't know what's happening. Amazon's email says I'll get it tomorrow before 1pm. I don't get how if they haven't got my money yet!

 

Been nightmare last couple days. It throws everything out and no time to any work on net. Only good thing is I got Dishonored on Xbox so I can still play that and take a break from worries.

[Fidcal]

I guess I'm cursed. Got up this morning. Email from Amazon sorry we can't meet the delivery date. (this is the 'guaranteed next day delivery and the false claim that they have X in stock.'

 

Yet they still show my orders in stock!....

 

So much for my 'quick fix'.

[Fidcal]

Oh well. Good news is they are sending the pc today so I should get it tomorrow. What held it up was i also ordered a keyboard and usb floppy but they are not urgent at all.

 

This is what I went for in the end. Usually I spend days and weeks choosing but here I just spent half an hour then grabbed at a top end gaming pc where Amazon offered next day delivery.

 

http://www.amazon.co...Y/ref=de_a_smtd

[Obsttorte]

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o

wanna

[Bikerdude]

This is what I went for in the end. Usually I spend days and weeks choosing but here I just spent half an hour then grabbed at a top end gaming pc where Amazon offered next day delivery. http://www.amazon.co...Y/ref=de_a_smtd

 

Fids, with respect and please don't take this the wrong way, CANCEL THAT ORDER, NOW...!!!!!

• I just google'd and found the same model with 12GB ram & 1TB HDD & GTX470 for £1400, your paying £900 for an extra 4GB ram, extra 2TB HDD capacity and the dual GTX580s. I've just checked, 16GB of ram costs £55-95, a 3TB HDD £95-115, 2x GTX580 £480-500. So I have to ask how the F*** are they making up the £200...???!!! (I'm guessing Acer's bloatware)
  
• Dual GTX580's? you would have been far better off with a single GTX680 which is just as powerful and only costs £336. Also better game compatibility (no SLI to muck about with).
  
• I've tried to get the "complete" tech specs for this model and even on Acer's own bloody web site its not clear enough at all. Acer have hidden thier contact number 3 pages deep, in my book that's quite frankly specious. Also they don't even list the model you selected from Amazon on their bloody website.
  
• I had to call ACer to find this out, but the supplied ram is only DDR3-1333 so should be even cheaper than the prices I found above
  
• While speaking to Acer, I found out the PSU is a 1KW model, but they could tell me the specs of it - so it could be some generic Chinese unit for all we know?
  
• The motherboard has the P67 chipset which is seriously old hat and slow. There are cheap Z77 based motherboards out there now that will make much better use of the Intel Core i7.
  
• Acer only offer a 1year warranty on that desktop, if I/we hand-built you a system you would get 2-3ys on most of the components! And after speaking to Acer, they told me they don't sell this unit direct, Amazon are selling it, so again only a 1yr warranty.
  

I could go on and on about how poor the specs of this desktop is for the money Amazon are charging you. I could have built you a PC and shipped it to you for FAR less than £2400 and it would have far longer warranty on all the major components.

[Fidcal]

Thanks Biker - but the bottom line is I wanted a PC today and no time to research. As it is, it's been despatched and I should get it tomorrow. I usually spend weeks searching around for the best deals but this time I just can't do anything without a decent PC. I've got nothing done since about Saturday and I doubt I'll get back up to speed before another week or two, installing essential tools and configuring them and so on. And that's assuming all goes well!

 

I expected to get ripped off to some extent but I'm just too tired to care. What you discovered in an hour or two would be beyond my knowledge to work out anyway.

[Bikerdude]

Thanks Biker, I expected to get ripped off to some extent but I'm just too tired to care. What you discovered in an hour or two would be beyond my knowledge to work out anyway.

Well next time (hopefully this one will last a while) don't go buying another PC without speaking to me first and that goes form any of your friends also

[brethren]

I can vouch for Biker's expertise - he helped me build my machine (I say "helped" but what I really mean is he told me exactly what to buy and I just wrote the check ) - purchased almost 4 years ago at a cost of $900 or so, and it's still running strong and plays new releases super smooth. I can almost run Dishonored maxed out. BIker, I'll probably be calling on ya in about 2-3 years or so when Thief 4 comes out.

[Bikerdude]

blimey, 4 yrs ago are you sure..? I must have helped over on TTLG perhaps.

 

And I think after all this time you'd be itch'n for a better Gfx card by now, oh and T4 will I think coming out on the unreal engine if dishonoured is anything to go by.