so my main computer just decided to power itself off (complete power boot down) and now wont start back up. doesnt even spin up the drive... powers on, spins the drive.. clicks once... turns off. not a happy camper.
nope... im guessing its the power supply.. its either power or hd. i freaken hope its not the mainboard... would be NO REASON for that to pop. exact proccess power button, the startupwhirl, (5 - 7 seconds) before the hardrive starts to spin up.... it shuts down.
could be a heat issue. My computer did the same thing and the fan over the CPU was not turning on. So it shut itself off. I had to blow out the inside of the case. that worked for a while. but a friend of mine told me to use this grease (forgot what its called) on the connector of the cpu fan . that worked no problems yet. its been 6 months
try holding f8? just a thought cause this happened with one of my computers and it was a virus that corrupted the start up protocol or somethin idk but i had to format everythin can u get to like a boot up page at all?
id say heat... first thought.. my laptop did that like 3 times in a row teh other day... so i propped it up a little with a book.. has been running all day everyday for the last 10 days no issues
ya the only prob with that tho it works but can cause more heat damage to your boards... i made a costly mistake doin that with my old laptop
I also blew out the dust.... meh I have had it for a couple of years now... this happened a few times... still going strong.. touch wood although the HDD makes some funny noises every now and then... not sure how that causes more heat damage when you are allowing the air to circulate better then if it sat flat with less space....
phrased that wrong i mean ya it works to avoid the problem but with out fixin it it can happen again and eventually cause bigger problems lol my bad
all the fans are powering on and everything should be the same as normal... brought it over to the budies to see if it might be a power supply I can't afford a computer crash right now. im a little more then irritated. especially since EVERYTHING I had buisness or not was on that computer.
after 4 or 5 crashes over as many years.. I pretty much bought a $200 storage drive (external) and I throw pretty much anything important over onto that...
Toaster, I have a laptop cooler you can just have, it will help with that.. but don't use it in a room you sleep in all night, it's loud. Skarecrow, if you can, come into the channel, we'll help you.
Try a different video card. I had the exact same symptoms in one of my machines earlier in the year. Reseated the vid card, worked for a couple of reboots. Eventually swapped it for an older slower one I had just laying around, and it has worked fine ever since. I was worried it was the PSU, too, but it wasn't. Good job, too, since those XPC PSUs aren't cheap. Stuart.
do you possibly have access to an external storage case? they are like 4 bucks..it would eliminate the possibility of it being your hard drive. Also can you locate the source of your clicking? id hate to say that it COULD be your HD iv had a few metronome sounding hard drives before...its not good if your fans are working fine that eliminates the heat source problem.. if i could come help you out i would! PM me with any additional questions and i will help you out accordingly i really hate computer problems..and if it turns out to be a power source problem? i can definitely look into that
Make sure everything is seated right on the board. Plugs, CPU, video and network cards, RAM, the works. This is a classic symptom of that on new boards. Old boards would post and throw beep codes, new boards don't even post. Though that said, it's also a classic symptom of a PSU going bad. I had the same thing happen when the fan in my PSU died, and eventually the dust got bad enough inside that components arced between each other and fryed it. One of my rails worked, the others didn't.
I trade computer work for car work. Seriously, though. #1 - power supply. #2 - mother board. If the computer hasn't been moved recently than I'd say 90% it's one of those two. And power supplies go out WAY more than mother boards. I have spare power supplies and would be happy to help test, diagnose, repair, whatever.
yea thats the sad thing.. im a huge computer guy and dumped mad money into this thing over the years. I know things pop and go bad from time to time.... this was just the WORST time for things to pop. bills take priority over computer now. i dont have an extra sata drive to test that. and i dont have an extra powersupply for what the board calls for. but i have tooooons of older computer crap laying around and extra video cards. im still thinking im sol of data recovery unless i can try and slave the drive (if it is the drive) but all my maps, notes, and collected programs and now in the pooper. the buddy didnt have a spare power supply. stupid money.. why do things have to cost money!
I have a spare SATA drive sitting right in front of me. Would be happy to help pull off data. I think I have access to a universal drive adapter. We could pull the drive and hook it up and dump stuff off to a laptop (which I also have). I got spare power supplies (maybe not a high-wattage new one with PCI-X vid card power hookups and stuff, though - I do have one pretty decent newer one in my closet, though - just haven't really looked at it). Seriously, when it comes to computers I have spare everything. Need 72 pin ECC EDO RAM? I got it. Need a mobo from a 1997 Packard Bell - I might have it (okay, that's a stretch).
well whomever ends up helping me.... if you have a spare case or have been wanting a new one. you now have a free custom paint job on it of YOUR design aside from the undying gratitude I will have.
I have spare drives if you need one, also I can help with data recover as well. If you need to send it in, I believe I still have some hookups with DriveSavers.
Okay, so what are your PSU requirements? Wattage & connectors. Do you need many SATA power connectors (guessing not)? Need an aux. 4-pin for the CPU? Aux. for a PCI-X vid card? 20 or 24 pin main mobo power? Next, how much data you got to offload if needed? < 100GB, between 100GB & 400GB, > 400GB? What's your CPU & motherboard? Where are you located and when do you want someone to come with spare parts?
Sounds like a motherboard issue. Does it have an EPROM that can be reset? should be a really small button on the board if it has it. Usually near the drive controllers.
ummmm let me take pictures... lol and see what I can remember... it's strange when I don't have the beast running.
the main board is - m2n-mx not sure what the actual processor is anymore... AMD somthing 64 3200 am2 (called nano sys) 8600 gt ddr3 256 card 400w supply 160gb hd i think...
Well, depending on where you're located I can bring a power supply over tonight to test. You can borrow it for a while, but I'm afraid it's already spoken for to go into another friend's PC (if he ever comes to get it). Could also bring a HD, but frankly that's not going to be the problem and yours no doubt still works fine. Bad connections rarely just happen - they're almost always a result of moving a PC. If they do develop in a stationary machine you will get plenty of intermittent flakiness before complete failure. Resetting the BIOS is unlikely to do anything, but it certainly doesn't hurt to try. Goalie - the green thing is an inductor. It is part of the board's circuitry. I honestly can't recall ever seeing a motherboard where it was a "button" - but I'm not saying there aren't any, it's just pretty uncommon. It's nearly always a jumper. Usually there are 3 pins with a jumper across 2 and you move it to the other two for a second then put it back. It's usually located very close to the flat, round battery (CR2023 or 2032 IIRC). I'd look up the jumper location for your mobo but it's not worth the time IMHO because it won't fix it. Could be mobo, but it's unlikely (though the more "stuff" integrated on the mobo the more likely it becomes) - often that shows up early as sporadic hard reboots for no apparent reason, undetected hardware, etc. as the electronics gradually fail to the point where the circuits no longer function correctly at all. A PC that is on and has no "ghosts" (intermittent issues) then loses power and can't get more than a moment into booting afterwards is almost certainly the power supply. That's my opinion based on 15 years of experience. On rare occasion it is a malfunctioning card in one of the slots. Easy enough to tell. Remove them all and see if the boot goes any further (of course you'll have no video, but if the PC stays on and beeps at you a lot it's probably one of the cards you removed - put them back in one at a time until it breaks again and that's the card that is bad).
oh i dont feel real bad... i'm just hoping it IS the psu. the last thing I need to fail on me is the mainboard / proccessor. what gets me is that the power is turned on, the fans all kick on, its just when it gets to checking the drives, (all the lights on the drives light up one time like a drive power check) and then it stutters and powers off. but while were on the subject my folks might help with a new system (mainboard / proccessor / psu) Im just not sure which route to go now. I have vista and prefer to keep that running. (if I can find the disks)
Hard drive spin-up is the most power hungry time your computer has (except maybe heavy duty processing on a fat new multi-core Xeon or something). The PS can can handle the power to get the board and CPU going, but then drives and everything else kicks in and poof. Done. I've seen this a dozen times at least. I'm still trying to recall the exact instances where it's been these symptoms and another cause and I'm mostly drawing blanks. If you want me to bring by a PS tonight to try PM me your # or address.
Is it posting at all?? From what i have read here and from my experience it could be either a motherboard, RAM or processor issue. If the powersupply spins the hdd its fine (although it looks like a generic case psu, and those usual fail). Try removing the video card like someone suggested....has happened to me on a build before. However, that mainboard did completely crap out a week later. What i would do: Find the cmos jumper and reset that. If you have other computer parts laying around plug in different ram, then processor.....If those dont do anything then it is the mboard.
im actually going to make a run over to general nano systems and see if I can come up with anything. ill PM you my cell drop me a line when you have a moment
so I was able to scrounge up about 300 bucks for a new system. anyone want to help me pick out a mainboard / cpu they close in to little time for me to be able to pick something up http://www.nanosys1.com/ is where I usually go, but if someone has a better deal somewhere please let me know.
Just tried to give you a buzz. Could try Microcenter, too. At least they're open until 9pm. I recently built a server with Microcenter parts: a E1200 Celeron ($35), some cheap mobo ($40), a surprisingly decent cheap case ($30), and $30 worth of RAM (can't even remember if that was 2GB or 4GB). It's nothing spectacular, but it's still pretty peppy given the adequate amount of memory and that Celeron being Core2 derived.
I just recently built a nice work computer for my mom for $300. core 2 duo n everything. Pick up a 680i sli mobo and q6600 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4179059&CatId=2406
^^^ That's sweet!! :hsdance: Computer stuff is almost too cheap these days. TigerDirect FTW. Waiting on UPS FTL, though.
AGREED, I hate waiting for stuff....gets to the point where im so excited i cant sleep. I'm like a kid on christmas eve when it comes to car/computer goodies.
