Dead PC...blown thermal fuse on the PSU?

[HappyWino]

My gaming PC decided it doesn't want to be my friend anymore and won't power up, I am hoping some bright spark here can confirm or deny my diagnosis

I was using it for email reading over the weekend and it turned off with no warning. The light on the power switch was lit but pressing it did nothing. The room was pretty warm so I figured maybe it overheated, I turned off power at the wall, waited a little while and tried again. It booted fine so I went to check temp. zones and sure enough both board zones were in the red and the CPU was dipping in and out. I shut it down, opened the case and cleaned out all the dust in there, the side intake fan grill was pretty blocked. It powered up again just fine, I left the room and when I came back it was off again with the light on the power button lit. No amount of unplugging it and trying again has helped and it has remained there silently taunting me ever since

Here is my theory, the PSU fan went to lala land causing the PSU and board to overheat. Not sure what happened the first time it shutdown but I am guessing that now the thermal fuse is blown. Sound feasible?

If not feasible, can anyone explain the lit power button that won't power the system on?

Thanks...and guess what...you won't see me on the servers until I get to the bottom of this

Cheers

HW

[spm97]

Happy
Try another power supply first. Give me specs, and I might be able to meet up with you somewhere (I think you're also a nor-cal person) and let you borrow a spare power supply.

Spam-RBR-

[HappyWino]

[quote="spm97";p="94833"]Happy
Try another power supply first. Give me specs, and I might be able to meet up with you somewhere (I think you're also a nor-cal person) and let you borrow a spare power supply.[/quote]

That's a mighty kind offer of help there Spam, thanks!

The MB is an Intel D915PBL with a P4 3.4GHZ (space heater), I am guessing you might be familiar with the configuration I think the current PSU is a 550W but I'll pull it out tonight and take it to work with me, I can let you know anything that will help off it from there.

Cheers

HW

[spm97]

I hold in my hand a 400W power supply, which should be enough to boot that configuration...at least enough to tell you if it's a blow PS or motherboard.

We'll figure out someplace to meet up tomorrow.

Spam

[HappyWino]

Cool

I pulled it and it's a 450W not a 550W, I only have a single graphics card and two HDs so your absolutely right, 400W should be enough to figure this out.

If it is the PSU, Fry's has a $40 rebate on a nice looking 630W modular cable supply right now..."only" $60 AR

Cheers

HW

[MrBlah]

if it does happen to be a bad PSU... take apart your old one and relly find out what the bloody hell happened. From the sound of it, you half blew your PSU so power still registers, but only enough for that light. or you may have a short circuit caused my the unfriendly tin whisker(unlikely, but possible)

Also, as for the overheating, what were the temps before hand idle and what were they when you checked and saw red?

May want to remount your heatsink with new thermal paste to be safe, check all your capacitors and make sure you didnt blow any of em.

[HappyWino]

I pulled it out and opened it up last night and didn't see anything obvious...this morning in better light I can see burnt circuit board at the base of one of the power transistors. I think the 12v rail fried but the 5v is still good, hence the LED being lit but no startup.

Hopefully it didn't cause a voltage spike through to the MB before fully failing... :s

As for the overheating, the CPU zone wasn't in the red at first, just the two MB zones. I'll throw a new PSU in there and cross my fingers all is well (while keeping a careful eye on the temps)

Cheers

HW

[HappyWino]

Happy days

New PSU fixed the system, no blown MB or CPU - wahoo!

Looks like it is going to turn out more expensive than I thought though

While I was at Fry's picking up a rather nice (and with a $40 rebate well priced) PSU I saw that they have the BFG 8800GT Overclocked for $199 with a $50 rebate...yikes, an 8800GT/512 for $149!!! I can't resist My current card (HD2600XT) is less than 6 months old and cost me $120 but that GT is just sooooo much better for such a steal!

Anybody need a lightly used HD2600XT for a good price...if you already have one then maybe it is time for some Crossfire action? (does it even support Crossfire? I don't know)

Cheers

HW

[mr_s]

you villuns are nuts on those graphic cards.!

its good to hear you solved your problem.

I ones had a spike, and it blew both PSU and mobo.

lukily the harddrive survived and the processor did too

[spm97]

Well - I just caught up on this thread....guess that explains why Happy didn't call me to get the PSU today

Glad to hear the PSU fixed it.

Spam