PC won't power on OCZ PSU help ><

[Night Hawk]

The best option now for Chooseyant is testing the main drive itself usually with a diagnostics tool provided by the manufacturer to confirm or rule out that being the source of the problem. That's where he is at present.

But seeing Windows installed on the drive outside of the present system will present other hardware profile/activation problems unless seeing at least a repair install first when reinstalled prior to any attempt on that. Trying a different drive and still seeing the same problem would be another way to rule the first drive out however.

When using the hardware tester on the last build it only confirmed what had already been suspected about the bios chip giving out after a full 3yrs. of use. The problems were consistent with the usual cause determined without any softwares needed.

Granted some have evolved a bit over the years to actually be of some use while others tend to be unreliable and often misidentify the actual problems as newer boards have become more complex. A program well written and kept updated on a regular basis seeing newer versions often would be the thought as far as software testers.

 

[Tepid]

Hard Drive Testing information


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Granted some have evolved a bit over the years to actually be of some use while others tend to be unreliable and often misidentify the actual problems as newer boards have become more complex. A program well written and kept updated on a regular basis seeing newer versions often would be the thought as far as software testers.

I agree, even on the hardware side of it.
They just can't keep up with the changes, or if they attempt to do so, they end up doing it kind of half-arsed and it is easier and more reliable (from a shop point of view) to just start swapping parts.

Man I loved doing Consumer side break fix. If you are good at it, and honest, it's fun.
But customers can be a real pain some times.

 

[Night Hawk]

The thing to remember even with the hardware form of testers is that those are limited at times as well unless you get into the 6digit testers where you need a tech to decipher the readout. a 2 or 4 can still be looked up on a chart that points out the part of the board a problem is being seen in general however like bios, cpu, etc. For addons like anything else installed on the board separate tests still have to be seen for each item.

Another possible cause that can come up is where a video card is going on you without any beep codes being heard. You start seeing unexplained display problems however unless Windows locks on you. Typically that is seen once you arrive at the desktop however and go to run something.

The best results as a rule however are through isolation when possible of each component in order to reveal the one or more having a problem. Even with brand new hardwares to work with more then one item could be seeing a defect making diagnostics a real task at times.

 

[Chooseyant]

I did a new install, hooked up the hard drive and same thing. I also put another hard drive in it and in the process of installing windows on it (through his computer not mine this time) I went into the bios to change boot order and it froze.

I was going to install windows on it again through my PC but my friend choose to send it to a PC repair shop.

 

[Chooseyant]

Yeah the I do actually have a copy of that ram tester but my friend doesn't want to wait it out. And since it freezes after a time at the bios maybe it is heat or ram... I am quite complexed.

 

[Night Hawk]

Unfortunately still running into the same problem when swapping out the first drive for another would suggect a bad dimm or perhaps mismatched memory was installed from the start. A look at the board's user manual not just the supported memory list at the board manufacturer's site may reveal the wrong voltage range or timings are way off from what the board requires.

As far as heatup issues that wouldn't stall a clean install on a cold startup but result in problems by the time you reached the desktop if too much thermal paste for example had been used on the hsf. The newer boards for some time have had an overheat protection circuit that would kick in if the cpu was getting hot to prevent that from cooking on you.

Unfortunately that brings you right back to board, ram, and drive with the last being ruled out. A bad 7 dvd? A bad install disk or one scratched or smeared up from handling would likely end up seeing a partial install which could hang. Problems with the optical drive would be a second less likely occurance.

Hopefully if the system went to competent repair shop they'll get things running for the price! That will take the burden off of you while it's still a bit disappointing.

 

[Tepid]

If it is locking up in the BIOS.... I might first try to flash the BIOS. This could just be a bad BIOS Flash.

But.... it could be any number of things, from bad ram/solts/mismatched to just a plain bad board. I would make them swap the whole board and make sure the ram is matched properly.

 

[Night Hawk]

I've had to return boards as well as recently replace one cooked by a supply. It's never fun! But your friend likely made the best move by having someone equipped go through everything.

 

[Chooseyant]

So... he got it back from the repair shop and they said it was fine! took it home and now it works. Sometimes PC's can act so strange I swear.

 

[Tepid]

I have money that says it wasn't fine, they did something or replaced something and just didn't tell him

 

[Night Hawk]

That's the unsolved mystery of the day if the repair didn't list what was replaced if anything on the receipt itself.

If the person who serviced it restored the bios defaults and your friend had toyed around in there seeing the drive set to AHCI mode and not having it set for Native ide that could have also accounted for the Windows hanging problem.

For now however "it's a mystery"! At least it's running well for the time being anyways.

 

[Chooseyant]

Well he didn't have to pay anything. They said it worked so they just left it on for a couple of hours.

 

[Night Hawk]

Did they make a service slip? It may have turned out to be a simple bios setting since you had been ruling out different hardwares all through this thread. Someone simply restored the board's defaults and there you go!

The problems described however are typical with hardwares as well however. But I can imagine your friend is elated about all this now that the system seems to be running good.

 

[Chooseyant]

I'm not sure if they made a slip, if it screws up, I'll let you know, and thanks for the help.

 

[Chooseyant]

So... the PC is still showing signs of problems.

This is all told by my friend who isn't exactly a tech expert.

Sometimes maybe half the time when he turns his computer on, it loads windows then blue screens. He doesn't have virus protection so I'm going to remote log in, install it and have a look around.

The other problem is he says that if he leaves his PC on for over 5 or so hours it freezes. So he has to regularly turn it off, instead of say leaving it on over night.

 

[Night Hawk]

The BSODs are typically driver error or hardware fault error codes being presented on a blue screen. That information would need to be looked at and researched to isolate the cause.

Bad ram, high temps, failing cpu, weak cap on the board, supply problem??? These are the usual areas besides a cmos problem if a battery on a board is weak. But even that would tend to see a swift restart right in the middle of running a game or app or problems getting things going when first turned on.

 

[Chooseyant]

Okay this is really strange.

Now the PC kills external hard drives or so it seems.

My brother tried 3 ext hdd's over the course of a week trying to get a program from the computer. The first time it broke he thought it was because he was swinging his bag around, the second time bad luck and the third time well... killer pc theory.

The story goes he put it in the front case USB slots all 3 times. The front 3 USB slots don't work for some reason, the USB connection is connected to the motherboard (2pin). And doesn't do anything, power on etc then after connecting to the back the hard drive doesn't read.

The light remains on, but can't read. Even in device manager, I also tried disk utility on mac aswell for one of the mac drives.

We sent the first one back to WD and got a refund, are the other 2 totally dead?

How is this even possible. What have I created?!

 

[Night Hawk]

I wouldn't count on the front ports for anything! With the new build here I finally got around to plugging in the front ports for use with flash drives. While the drives can read from you are not able to boot from any!

The rear ports on the board are usually the reliable while you can also add on a good usb hub and use that option to see more ports made available. The problem with front and top ports however is an all too well known problem going back several years now since cases started seeing them. The problem is typically not having enough power available through those as you would see with the rear ports.

 

[Chooseyant]

I agree, but now my external hard drives don't work at home. They just power on and can't be read. Have they been murdered?

 

[Night Hawk]

If your rear ports are working as they should I would have to suspect a problem with the external power source not providing adequate current to power the drives while still enough to see lights come on.

Your other option would be removing them from the external enclosures for either internal installation or another separate known to be good usb enclosure to see if the drives themselves are toast. You can pick up a fan cooled ide/sata type for a good price at newegg for example where you can easily swap one drive out for another without a fuss for setting one drive aside while adding files onto another or to see if a drive has failed.

As for seeing them work elsewhere but not at home? That suggests the usb ports are not supplying the right amount of current where you may need to buy a good hub with it's own ac adapter to provide it's own power. I ended up buying another pair of hubs to add one to another new build worked on plus to have as a spare.

Know someone you can borrow one from to rule out the drives in case the rear ports are bad? Unless the drives had been banged around and dropped on floors it does sound a bit unlikely that multiple external drives would all fail at the same time yet work on another system without problems.