Solved Computer do not want to boot. Not even to BIOS.

[Lebon14]

Hey guys.
I'm speaking of my rig here. Yes, it doesn't want to boot anymore. Let me explain the situation.

Since a while, maybe last month, my computer started to close and reboot on its own. Then, I was surprised so I checked to see if my fans were running, the temperature of the CPU, GPU, then my HDD's smarts value, etc. Everything was fine! But then, it stopped for a while until yesterday evening where it stopped 3 times in a small lapse of time. The third time, I had to do an electric reset then it booted again and everything was fine until I closed my PC and went to sleep.

So, I booted my PC again today and all was good for a couple of hours. Then, it stopped and rebooted 2 times and the 3rd time was the final nail to the coffin.

When I press the power button, there's no signal to the monitor and the hard drive activity LED is staying on. That's about it. No BIOS is shown, no bips either.

I disconnected it. Tested all my hard drives inclusing the SSD with a USB adaptor and they all showed up on my mom's PC just fine. I thought it was my graphic card so I took my old GeForce 8500 GT and swap it with mu GTX 460. Same result. What I can say is that all the fans power up, the LEDs too and the small LEDs beside the RAM slots too.

I'm stumped. It's either the motherboard or the CPU at that point.

What do you think?
Help!

Thanks in advance!

P.S Using my mom's PC.
P.S2 I don't have any another PSU, motherboards, CPU and RAM to test with...

EDIT

There were no BSOD or any other errors when restarting was happening. Just pointing it out.

 

[zigzag3143]

Hey guys.
I'm speaking of my rig here. Yes, it doesn't want to boot anymore. Let me explain the situation.

Since a while, maybe last month, my computer started to close and reboot on its own. Then, I was surprised so I checked to see if my fans were running, the temperature of the CPU, GPU, then my HDD's smarts value, etc. Everything was fine! But then, it stopped for a while until yesterday evening where it stopped 3 times in a small lapse of time. The third time, I had to do an electric reset then it booted again and everything was fine until I closed my PC and went to sleep.

So, I booted my PC again today and all was good for a couple of hours. Then, it stopped and rebooted 2 times and the 3rd time was the final nail to the coffin.

When I press the power button, there's no signal to the monitor and the hard drive activity LED is staying on. That's about it. No BIOS is shown, no bips either.

I disconnected it. Tested all my hard drives inclusing the SSD with a USB adaptor and they all showed up on my mom's PC just fine. I thought it was my graphic card so I took my old GeForce 8500 GT and swap it with mu GTX 460. Same result. What I can say is that all the fans power up, the LEDs too and the small LEDs beside the RAM slots too.

I'm stumped. It's either the motherboard or the CPU at that point.

What do you think?
Help!

Thanks in advance!

P.S Using my mom's PC.
P.S2 I don't have any another PSU, motherboards, CPU and RAM to test with...

EDIT

There were no BSOD or any other errors when restarting was happening. Just pointing it out.

DO you have another power supply to test this computer with?

 

[Lebon14]

I do but it's only 500 Watts my current is 700 Watts.

 

[Thorsen]

I was thinking the same don't count out the Power supply and 500 should be enough to post without HDD's DVD's Etc. plugged in.

 

[Lebon14]

I will try with my friend. I hope he can come over today. My self-confidence is actually very low. (Actually stressed atm)
Will give update once we test that out.

 

[TVeblen]

That 500 w power supply will be perfectly fine to test with, especially if you do it the "best" way (see below).
But it won't hurt to try and boot with the smaller power supply before you try the "big test" below. Windows might complain, but the boot process will go through if that is the problem.

The best way to diagnose a non-booting PC:

• Disconnect everything (all cables, drives, etc) from the rear of the PC, and the motherboard.
• Remove all cards, including the video card.
• Remove all the RAM.

You are now left with just 3 components: power supply (500w) connected, motherboard, and CPU. For an even more thorough test a lot of folks remove the motherboard and place it outside of the case.

Then plug in or turn on the power supply and start the computer.
You won't see anything, of course, but you should get some error beeps. This is good. They are telling you that the boot process is proceeding normally and "no RAM is found".

If the MB is out of the case, now is the time to shut down and put it back in. Watch those stand-offs! Then boot again to retest for the "no RAM" error.

Power down and then install one stick of RAM in slot A1. Boot again. More (different pattern) beeps mean "no video card detected". Good. This means everything is working as it should.
If you don't get the BIOS error beeps at any point then you have found the problem hardware.

Power down and then install the video card, and connect the monitor. Boot again. There should be no error beeps at this point and you should see the BIOS screens on the monitor. It will stop when it gets to "no boot device found".

Now just keep adding components back to the system, one at a time, to test to see if the symptoms return. Start with the remainder of the RAM - one stick at a time.

Hope that helps.

 

[Lebon14]

Update.
My Antec 500 Watt is not enough. My motherboard needs an extra 8-pin and the 500 Watt Power Supply doesn't have one. Only 4s. So, I disconnected the whole power suplly and I will test it on my friend's PC.

 

[jumanji]

While you are at it, do consider changing that little battery on the motherboard.It could have run out of juice. Just my thought.

 

[Lebon14]

Nah, jumanji... I don't think that it will help... the most it can do is that the BIOS settings will be lost and the Windows time won't be the real time. (will contantly lose time, if turn off)

@TVeblen I'm 100% certain that my RAM, HDDs, CPU and cooling fans works. I don't need to make such test unless my PSU works on my friend's PC. (Rig : Phenom X4 9950 BE, 4GB DDR2 RAM, GeForce 9800GT + 2 HDDs)

If all else fail, I consult a PC shop. No real choice.

 

[alphanumeric]

I'd take the CMOS/BIOS battery out as a test, just to be sure. I almost sent a motherboard to the trash/recycle and it turned out to be just a dead CMOS battery. That motherboard wouldn't post with the dead battery in place.

 

[Lebon14]

Big update.

My friend tested my PSU in his PC. Result : PSU blew up. Time to get the warranty kick in for this legacy PSU (according to SilverStone).

 

[TVeblen]

Is that a figure of speech (PSU blew up), or are you actually pulling shrapnel out of the walls?

Glad you found the cause so easily!

 

[Lebon14]

PSU actually went boom boom (on pressing the power button) and smoke was seen and smelled. In the process, he lost both of his cd/dvd drives and hard drives He endures a big lost atm. Some stuff he had was as old as 10 years. Fortunately, one of his hard drive was on warranty... I doesn't know if he kept the recipe... finger crossed.

 

[TVeblen]

Ouch! Sorry to hear that - what a nightmare. I hope he is a very good friend!

 

[jumanji]

Terrible. My sympathies to your friend. I think you should send a note to the manufacturer expressing your anger and anguish. Anyting that fails should fail safe. Otherwise it is a pointer to a bad design.

 

[dustywoodworker]

Terrible. My sympathies to your friend. I think you should send a note to the manufacturer expressing your anger and anguish. Anyting that fails should fail safe. Otherwise it is a pointer to a bad design.

Actually - when you mixed suspect parts with good parts as a trouble shooting tool - you were asking for trouble. You should have TESTED the PSU without connecting to a computer at all.

How do you know that something other than the PSU caused all that smoke and smell.

As for warranty - GOOD LUCK. You violated the terms of any warranty I have ever read.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

What a drag, so sorry for you and your friend. There are lessons here to be learned. Hopefully it only turns out to be money and time lost and not memories and vital data. Keep us advised.

 

[Lebon14]

Ouch! Sorry to hear that - what a nightmare. I hope he is a very good friend!

He wasn't mad, just VERY downed by that. No one could have expected that the thing would blew up on his PC.

Terrible. My sympathies to your friend. I think you should send a note to the manufacturer expressing your anger and anguish. Anyting that fails should fail safe. Otherwise it is a pointer to a bad design.

I agree to the fail safe part... but do we wish everything should be like that.

Actually - when you mixed suspect parts with good parts as a trouble shooting tool - you were asking for trouble. You should have TESTED the PSU without connecting to a computer at all.

How do you know that something other than the PSU caused all that smoke and smell.

As for warranty - GOOD LUCK. You violated the terms of any warranty I have ever read.

How does testing a part void any warranty? I don't understand. And do the companies NEED to know what really happened? I'm sure not.

What a drag, so sorry for you and your friend. There are lessons here to be learned. Hopefully it only turns out to be money and time lost and not memories and vital data. Keep us advised.

He hopes that he can change the controller of the 500GB hard drive he has so he can maybe retrieve the data. Like I said to him, that's nowhere near anything I know of. He can only wish someone in town knows how to change it if he can exactly the same HDD model too. The 500GB is actually the one under warranty and the one that has his most precious data.

Anyway, I sent an e-mail yesterday evening to Silverstone... still awaiting a reply.

 

[Lebon14]

Still no news from Silverstone... I'm starting to think that they ignored me.

EDIT

They've got some weird return process... I need to fax my form, wait for RMA # then ship it?! Oh and, long distance from Canada to US since they have to free numbers. And I don't have a fax.

 

[Lebon14]

So looks like I'll be buying another one. It will be a Xigmatek and bought it from a local shop (was suggested to me) so it'll be problem-free if anything happens during warranty period. Those factor, listed below, discouraged me to get the warranty for my Silverstone :
- Legacy product (according to website)
- Need to Fax to get a RMA. (Fax to US rates apply x2)
- No guarantee I'll get a new one since it's legacy. Otherwise, it'll be repaired and don't want a repaired PSU
- Shipping costs.

So yeah. The Xigmatek will be 700W+ depending of what features I need :
- 8-pin to power mobo
- 2x6-pin PCI-Express for graphic card.
- At least 4 SATA Power cables.
- Modular

Gonna have to pay for that next Monday/Tuesday. If I couldn't have something local, it would had been a Corsair HX750 or Thermaltake Toughpower XT TPX-775M.
Saga ends here.