I am so stuck

R

Rev. Night

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
Messages
1,493
Ok, a lot to say here so might as well start it at the beginning.

A few weeks ago, I upgraded from my old computer (on sale HERE ) to an AMD Athlon 2800+, abit nf7, 1x512 pc2700 ram, 9800xt. All ran fine, perfectly, but the past 2 weeks or so I have noticed my computer getting louder. MUCH louder. Like so loud you know something is fucked up under the hood.

Lo and behold, something was.

It was my PSU (and no, not Penn State University). It got to a point where the fan was so loud, that if I were to lightly press down on the psu, my computer would turn off. Finally, one night when I was playing Tribes 2 until who knows what ungodly hour, the whole comp just goes dead. No brilliant flash of light, now huge sound, just plain shut off. My psu died peacefully.

How do I know that its dead? I have two boards on hand right now. One that is my system, one that I am selling. Both had power LEDs that come on automatically if they have power. So I plugged the psu into both of them, and the LEDs did not turn on. Neither did the computer. Sooo...with this in mine, I went to find a new power supply. After choosing on a few (including a powmax, which I then subsequently cancelled the order when I was told by many people on many forums how bad they were) power supplies, I finally bought a Thermaltake Silent Power 480 watt off of Newegg for $66. THG and Anandtech, as well as their forums, all had positive things to say about this psu.

After 5 long days of tracking the psu over fed ex, it finally arrives. Praise Vivec! So anyway, I take out the old psu (a 400 watt CompUSA brand that came with the CompUSA case when I bought it about 18 mos ago), and put in my new psu. I was ecstatic when the red LED came on in my case, it was getting power! But.....It would not turn on. I plugged in the chassis plug to the mobo (the chassis power switch) perfectly, I even checked the manual, but the computer still will not turn on. The cpu, power, and chassis fans do not turn on, no booting, it is as if the computer is off. The only difference is the red LED light is on.

So I am like ok, since that was the mobo that was in my computer when the psu died, maybe it is bad now (I have heard of PSU's taking out whole systems). So I take it out that whole system and put in the one that I am selling. I get the power LED light that says it is receiving power....but again, the computer does not turn on. No booting, no fans going on, nothing. So am like wtf. I double and triple check that my power switch (chassis --> Mobo) is on the correct pins and correct orientation. It is. So I call my dorm computer help guy, he comes over, and says that I have everything plugged in correctly. The psu is on (which is how the mobo is getting the power to turn on its light), so there is no reason why the comp should not turn on. I even changed the chassis power on switch to my reset switch, and then put the reset plug where the power on plug was at the mobo, to see if that would work. My line of thinking here being that maybe it was a physical/mechanical problem with my chassis switch. Nope, that still didn't work. So I am getting the same results (power light on, but no booting) on two different mobos/rams/cpu combos.


So did my psu come dead on arrival? If so, when I RMA it, should I keep the brand or getting something else? I really don¡¦t want to spend more here, I am but a poor college student.
 
i would suggest you to dig up some old computer with a powersupply or just find a powersupply in a working computer...if you dont have one, borrow it from a friends computer...and make sure the powersupply works in its original computer

take that powersupply and then test your computer with it, if it works, then your thermaltake powersupply is DOA....if it doesnt work, then something may be wrong with your system
 
but if both systems worked perfectly before and the only common link between them is the psu, what could be causing the both of them to fail if the psu is good?
 
Could be that when you tried the first PSU that died on that second MB that it fried it too?
 
Originally posted by Nightfall
Could be that when you tried the first PSU that died on that second MB that it fried it too?
Click to expand...


I didn't check the old psu on my old board (which ran perfectly together a few weeks ago when i removed it) at first. I first ordered the new psu, then put the new psu in the old mobo. THEN i put tried the old psu on it.

So no, my old psu did not have a chance to somehow fry my old mobo before my new psu got on it.
 
So I plugged the psu into both of them, and the LEDs did not turn on. Neither did the computer. Sooo...with this in mine, I went to find a new power supply.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... I must of misread that statement then...
 
Where are both PSU's being pluged in, Directly to a wall socket or through a Surge protector?
 
Mobo --> Psu --> Surge --> Wall Socket.


I am in a dorm, and the wall socket works fine for my roomate too
 
1. put old psu in old computer, make sure its working just fine

2. put it in new computer, if it doesnt work, then ur psu is doa

3. if old psu doesnt work in either then ur mobo is a goner


just swap parts til u get something...otherwise u gotta order urself new parts


advice: if something is ever suspicious, get it fixed...its not worth losing ur whole computer...drop $60 on a psu rather than spend weeks troubleshooting and getting new parts and so forth
 
old psu in old computer = nothing. The old psu is dead.

new psu in old computer = nothing. Not sure why, that is the topic of my post.


Right now , i am just seeing if my psu is bad, trying to get another one thru somebody. then if it is doa, going to RMA it
 
assuming of course, that my psu is the problem. could anything else be the problem? B/c from the way the computer looks right now, it looks exactly like how it would look before i turned the chassis power switch on.

Even tho i and the computer help guys feel that the chassis switch is in the right place on both mobos, i can't help but wonder if it is something small we are missing.
 
Clarification:


When i try to start the computer, there are no pci/agp cards attached. It is just the mobo, cpu, ram, case fan, and psu. No floppies/cd/hdd or anything. This cuts down on the amount of power needed.

As i said before, the light came on just fine. So therefore, the psu is doing some power. So by this reasoning i just said fuck it, and only plugged in my little case fan to the psu. so it was like this:

Case Fan --> Psu --> Surge --> Socket.

The fan did not turn on. However, i am curious as to if this was a function of the psu, or a function of the case wiring. The mobo light comes on automatically and as such requires no prompting. But the fan must be told to draw power, this being done by the case power button.

So maybe its not the psu, but a probelm with the case wiring to the mobo? If so, how would i check this?
 
Originally posted by Rev. Night

Case Fan --> Psu --> Surge --> Socket.

The fan did not turn on. However, i am curious as to if this was a function of the psu, or a function of the case wiring. The mobo light comes on automatically and as such requires no prompting. But the fan must be told to draw power, this being done by the case power button.
Click to expand...
ATX power supplies will not turn on separate from a mobo (well, there's a way, but it involves a little trick).

Seriously, why don't you have a vidcard on that system, to see if it's actually working?

do this.
hook up PSU, mobo, 1 stick of RAM, processor, HSF, and video card. Turn it on. Any video? Any beep codes? any fans spinning?

If not, something's wrong. If the fans spin, but no video or beep codes, it could be the vidcard or mobo. If beep codes, could be RAM or CPU. If no fan spinning, it could be PSU.
 
the two systems are:

one cpu, one mobo, one stick of ram, one case fan

i am not putting my video or sound cards in the systems on purpose. My thinking here is if the psu has enough juice to power the led on the mobo, then it is merely an issue of it not having enough juice to power the rest of the system. As such, i want to take out all of the non-needed cards (as they draw unnessecary power) so the power req. will be alot smaller. ESP since my 9800xt goes both into the mobo and into the psu.

However, even if i did put it in there, it still would be for shit. The system is not even powering up. No fans turning, no buzzing, it is as if u have not even pressed the power button. Which is why i am not 100% sure if it a psu problem, and not a case wiring problem.....
 
Well, you are in a bit of a pickle. It's possible that the original bad power supply went bad in such a way as to damage the motherboard or even the CPU. I have seen a bad CPU causeing the system to be completly dead like you are describing.

Here's what you can do though.

On the new, possibly dead PSU. Plug a hard drive into 1 of the 4 pin connectors. They sometimes need to see some kind of load to run properly. Next, look at the motherboard connector. You should see 1 green wire. The green wire is what will turn on the PSU. Bend a paper clip to jumper the green wire pin over to 1 of the black wire pins. You should hear the hard drive power up, and the fan on the PSU should spin. At this point, you can check the voltage on the connectors if you know how to use a volt meter. If the power supply turns on manually, but not through your MBs, both of the MBs may have been damaged by the bad power supply.

Good luck.

Don
 
To check your new power supply, put it in another person's system to see if it starts up in there. If it does, then your problem is not the new PSU.

Also, I didn't see if your old system has a CPU that will work in the new system. If it does, then put the old CPU in the newer motherboard with the new power supply and see if it will start up then. You can try the same thing with the RAM.

Just because the LED on the motherboard lights up, doesn't mean that the motherboard is good. It just means it is getting power.

One other thing you can try is take the CMOS battery out of the old system and put it in the new system. I've heard of problems with bad CMOS batteries not allowing a system to start up.
 
Ok, Old system is:

Mobo, CPu, Ram

New system is:

Mobo, CPU, Ram

Shared Parts are:
Video Card, sound card, HDD, Case, PSU (new one), cd, floppies, etc....


Yes, there is a possibility that the old psu friend my new mobo. BUT, there is not one that my old psu fried my old mobo. The mobo worked with the old psu perfectly, and i only replaced it b/c i wanted one that was faster (had 8x agp), not becuase it was defective. Since i took the mobo out when it was working, it should still be working. Morever, it has not even been in my system (except for this fiasco) in about 2 months.

The new psu will not start either system. I'm not talking about posting. I'm talking about no fans running, nothing buzzing, the system will not power up.


DonDon
I've heard about doing this from an Anandtech forum too. I'm going to do that and see what happends (the green to black wire thing).

SmokeRngs
If the psu is fine, then yeah, the only logical thing to do next would be to swap parts to see which (if any) are the bad ones.
 
Originally posted by Rev. Night
the two systems are:

one cpu, one mobo, one stick of ram, one case fan

i am not putting my video or sound cards in the systems on purpose. My thinking here is if the psu has enough juice to power the led on the mobo, then it is merely an issue of it not having enough juice to power the rest of the system. As such, i want to take out all of the non-needed cards (as they draw unnessecary power) so the power req. will be alot smaller. ESP since my 9800xt goes both into the mobo and into the psu.
Click to expand...
if it doesn't have enough juice to power the system with gfx card, isn't it useless anyway? Why not test in a way you can be sure of your results? If you don't have a graphics card in it, you'll never know what it's doing.

Here's my theory.
Your old PSU crapped out on your new system, frying the motherboard and/or CPU in a bad way. In fact, it fried it in such a bad way, one of those components now has the "touch of death" and will kill any new PSU which foolishly tries to power it on.

Enter your new PSU, which gets plugged into the new system and is promptly drafting into the army of darkness.

Upon plugging the new PSU into your old system (which is STILL GOOD), the new PSU shares the love, taking out your old mobo and/or old CPU.

If you think that these are just ghost stories, ask some of the old-timers..."killer" hardware DOES exist.

The only way to be sure is to plug your new (possibly possessed) PSU into an unsuspecting friend's known working hardware. If it refuses to power up, you know the PSU is dead. If it refuses to power up, then still refuses to power up when your friend reconnects it to *his (or her)* power supply, then burn both your systems and sprinkle holy water over the ashes.
 
how can a bad mobo kill a good psu? Espicially if it was never on to begin with?



As per my quote in your post, the object of that test was to see if the board was running and in good shape, not to test about the power supply.
 
Originally posted by Rev. Night
how can a bad mobo kill a good psu? Espicially if it was never on to begin with?



As per my quote in your post, the object of that test was to see if the board was running and in good shape, not to test about the power supply.
Click to expand...
....but just being able to see a green LED on the mobo tells you nothing about whether or not it works...

I don't understand the first part of your post. Are you saying you didn't plug the new PSU into the new mobo and try to turn it on?
 
I tried the 'paper clip' thing for my psu, it didn't turn on. It didn't even register in any function that anything was happening.....

the guy on the Anandtech forum said for me to use a wire...i think that would be better then a paper clip....
 
[ Are you saying you didn't plug the new PSU into the new mobo and try to turn it on?
Click to expand...


No, i did. The first thing i did was try to put the new psu into the new mobo.
 
ok, so i just sent the psu back RMA style to newegg. Once they ship me a new one, and it doesn't make my comp work, what else do i do?
 
Originally posted by jagec
if it doesn't have enough juice to power the system with gfx card, isn't it useless anyway? Why not test in a way you can be sure of your results? If you don't have a graphics card in it, you'll never know what it's doing.

Here's my theory.
Your old PSU crapped out on your new system, frying the motherboard and/or CPU in a bad way. In fact, it fried it in such a bad way, one of those components now has the "touch of death" and will kill any new PSU which foolishly tries to power it on.

Enter your new PSU, which gets plugged into the new system and is promptly drafting into the army of darkness.

Upon plugging the new PSU into your old system (which is STILL GOOD), the new PSU shares the love, taking out your old mobo and/or old CPU.

If you think that these are just ghost stories, ask some of the old-timers..."killer" hardware DOES exist.

The only way to be sure is to plug your new (possibly possessed) PSU into an unsuspecting friend's known working hardware. If it refuses to power up, you know the PSU is dead. If it refuses to power up, then still refuses to power up when your friend reconnects it to *his (or her)* power supply, then burn both your systems and sprinkle holy water over the ashes.
Click to expand...

ROFLMAO :D Good Humor there
 
A while back I was have a PSU problem, someone suggested get a power supply tester to check out the PSU or use a volt meter if you know how to use it (which I didn't). This way you don't have to take a chance on ruining other computer equipment.
 
ok, the first psu i ordered from Newegg (TT Silent PurePower 480 watt) was DOA. I sent it back, got a new one, and viola! everything now works.


yayyyyyyyyyyyy



With my 480 watt, G6800U here i come.
 
did you check the back of the powersupply to see that it is set to 115v not 220v.. small things like that
could mess you up
 
you should have pee'ed on the old one and set it on fire to kill the demons inside before you sent it back
 
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