Ninja Edit: WOO! Computer fixed!
polycounter lvl 18
OK, so I was just doing some work tonight, when BAM, my whole computer just shut down. I thought it might be a problem with the mains, but my monitors still had power, and they're plugged into the same power strip.
Pressing the power button no longer turns the computer on. It does nothing. I opened up the case, checked all the cables - all still in place.
The LED on the motherboard is lit, so I guess it's not a problem with the PSU?
Is it possible that the processor or RAM is fried?
Anyone got any ideas on how I can test it or maybe get it working again?
[edit]I'm posting from my laptop here, so all is not lost - but all my current work is on the desktop computer's hard drive (ironically I was thinking about backing it up again this morning), and I have no way to get the work off that hard drive and onto the laptop.
Pressing the power button no longer turns the computer on. It does nothing. I opened up the case, checked all the cables - all still in place.
The LED on the motherboard is lit, so I guess it's not a problem with the PSU?
Is it possible that the processor or RAM is fried?
Anyone got any ideas on how I can test it or maybe get it working again?
[edit]I'm posting from my laptop here, so all is not lost - but all my current work is on the desktop computer's hard drive (ironically I was thinking about backing it up again this morning), and I have no way to get the work off that hard drive and onto the laptop.
Replies
Maybe the power supply is just screwed enough for it not to provide enough power to boot up, but enough to light the mobo LED? It sounds unlikely to me...
So I'd say either the motherboard is broken or the power switch is. Is there any way to turn on the motherboard without the power switch?
Slayerjerman: I'm not too familiar with these simple troubleshooting procedures... this sort of thing hasn't happened to me much, and usually if something goes wrong it's a fairly easy solution. This is confusing the hell out of me - the power is there, all the individual pieces are working fine, but pressing the power switch has no effect...
Sounds like it's your motherboard or your PSU. Although the LED may be on, one of the other rails may have died.
Test it with a new PS, and if that fails, it's your mobo I'm guessing
I'm gonna see if I can borrow a PSU today and see if it's that. I really hope that's all it is, I don't want to have buy a whole new motherboard
Usually if you can't power on at all, it could be the PSU or the Mobo is fried.
(my stupid Asus fried one day several years ago all by itself and was only a half year old, I got a replacement underwarrenty, but since the board was discontinued they gave me a used one, which was screwed up too, as you had to power up, then press restart to get the system to boot up. I never trusted ASUS anymore cause of that)
I have a project deadline in 3 days, and the only up-to-date versions of my work are currently inaccessible in my desktop computer...
With luck, I won't have to buy a new motherboard... I guess I'll find out tonight.
Check your CPU fan/heatsink. Is it clogged up with dust bunnys? This is the most common problem I've found on computers like this. If the computer doesn't turn on after the CPU has cooled down, then the CPU is probably toast.
Here's some thoughts:
Does the computer beep at all? Like does it possibly work, but the video crapped out.
Usually, if the CPU is still good, the motherboard or video card info will appear. If the RAM is bad, it would start beeping or freeze at that point.
Were you doing anything that would have been a strain on the CPU?
I don't suppose one of your mates has a similar computer that you can try your CPU in. If so, throw it into another computer and see if it'll boot.
Notman: It doesn't power up at all so I doubt it beeps.
Notman: It doesn't power up at all so I doubt it beeps.
[/ QUOTE ]
It doesn't fully power up, but it does receive power because the motherboard lights up. That is the level of power up that I'm refering to.
That's not to say that it isn't the power supply.
My flatmate is a saviour (thanks Paul, yet again!) ... he had a spare 450W PSU lying around, and just gave it to me. That was all the trouble was - everything else appears to be working perfectly still (I'm posting this from the fixed machine!).
I'm still kinda jittery, when I replaced the whole power supply and booted up, it seemed to be taking a lot longer to load than usual, and I was praying the hard drive wasn't busted.
I'm very lucky - it all seems to be there. Backing up my important stuff is in progress right now. Lesson learned.
Now I'm gonna go to sleep for a very long time, wake up and jump up and down violently on the old, broken PSU with righteous fury!
If you are reading this and you don't have a current backup of all that graphics work that you've slaved for years over, you are going to take it up the ass at some point. It's not a matter of if, but when.
ftp://ftpdownload.maxtor.com/pub/Personal_Storage/OneTouch/OneTouch_CD.iso
User's Guide...
http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=1118
This can also be used with tape and CDs. This is not pirated software but something we bundle with external drives for backups. (I'm a Maxtor employee) You don't need a Maxtor external to use it but I encourage you to get one because they quite frankly rock if you've ever had a workstation go down unexpectedly.
To test your powersupply now (without having to put a new one in yet), find the on/off jumper coming from the powersupply, and short circuit it. All you are doing is completing the circuit.
Like what would fit in those two prong holes? A small piece of stripped wire (like from the interior of a telephone cord). Formed into a U and fit nicely inside.
Dont worry, there isnt much current going through it, but if your worried, use something with a unmetal unhandle to do the task.
Guess what? It stopped working about a week after my old harddrive died. Fortunately I managed to get all the important stuff off it during that week, but damn, I'd only just had it over a year, and I'd treated it really well! Just one day out of the blue (it had just been sitting on top of my computer case for months) it started getting bad sectors - entire folders disappeared and stopped being accessible, or wouldn't copy entirely. Then about a week after that started happening, it just stopped reading anything at all.
Now I have a very expensive paperweight
Also every USB pen drive I seem to get breaks after a few months - the first one I had stopped being able to write new files to the disk (existing files were fine and readable but the write-protect button seemed to be broken)... i sent that back and got a replacement under warranty. That one worked fine for longer, but then one day just stopped working at all. No read, no write, nothing. I really don't have much luck with hard drives. Did I mention my laptop's hard drive kindly wiped itself one time at boot-up? I still have no idea why that happened. Fine one night, shut down ok. Start it up the next morning - error, bad disk - do a scan on it, no files to be seen. Fixing the master boot record did nothing, scandisk just found a fresh clean drive as if it had been formatted. Had to reinstall windows completely, lost everything.
So yeah... backing up to an external drive is all well and good provided the external drive is reliable. I can't afford to replace an external hard drive once a year
One think ive noticed about HDDs ive bought from Maxtor, is that they always seem to go just after a year, ive seen 5 die like this in the last few years. Glad your all sorted tho Mop
One think ive noticed about HDDs ive bought from Maxtor, is that they always seem to go just after a year, ive seen 5 die like this in the last few years. Glad your all sorted tho Mop
[/ QUOTE ]
i've had a maxtor drive last a few year, the next died within a few month, and the replacement for that died the very same day. the next maxtor drive i buy will probably explode the moment it arrives.
MoP: Do you have an industrial strength magnet lying around somewhere?
I remember my flatmate put some unshielded hi-fi speakers next to his monitor last year, and ever since then it's had nasty little lines of discolouration down the sides...
I moved my guitar amp further from the computer out of paranoia anyway...
KDR - Meh, whatever...we have less than 1% of our drives fail within warranty. Granted retail drives are a 1 year warranty now, but so is the rest of the market. "Any geek" (I'm assuming you mean the self-proclaimed computer experts with the coveted A+ certification posting on message boards in a rapid fire attempt to demonstrate his technical dominance over his correspondants before going to bed at 4am and sleeping in the fetal position with dick in hand) strike me as pretty rabid and for some reason they just don't come across with alot of credibility when it comes to becrying our products, or anyone else's for that matter.
All of the Hitachi, Western Digital, and SeaGate drives Ive had have failed much more rapidly & badly than any of my Maxtors. I had a WD & a Hitachi drives that I purchased and within 1 month they both went tits up, so I replaced them with Maxtors and have been sailing smooth ever since.
Also got a really old Western Digital one from about 1995 which still works perfectly. It's only 360mb, though
For ATA drives the difference between HDD mfrs tech is very negligible. We all use the same platter tech, the same mechanisms. The main differences are the logic controllers. It's when you get into the Enterprise-class drives that the physical tech is more divergent. ATA drives are sort of like a Honda: stock staple money making machines and Enterprise drives (SCSI) are like the Lexus: low volume, high profit margin, high performance, high reliability.
anyway, never owned a maxtor drive myself - most of my stuff is 10k seagate u320 scsi stuff. recently got myself a fujitsu 10k u320 disk as well - hope it's as good and durable as the reviews stated.