Tower won’t power up….at ALL….just a flicker of the fan.
August 7th, 2016
Before i explain further, i will mention that YES i did try a new PS (Power-Supply), and it did not fix the issue.
Ok, so i leave my machines running all the time. The only time they get shut-down is for a reboot.
I have surge protection and battery backups, so the idea of a surge cooking the machine is highly unlikely.
I went to bed the other night, and the machine was running fine, but when i came down in the morning, it had rebooted and showed a screen that said “Input cable disconnected, reseat cable and restart computer” (black screen, in DOS writing).
I found it kinda strange, since i hadn’t touched the machine…..so i just rebooted.
The same issue pursisted…..so i powered the machine down, as i was going to troubleshoot it when i had time.
I came back to the machine today, and tried powering it up.
It would quickly turn the fan, then shut off. (No POST or Beep-codes).
The little yellow light on the Motherboard is on, so i know that the board is getting juice.
I have unhooked all other components, as i believed one of them could be shorting out and causing the issue….but it now doesn’t do anything.
When i press the power button, the CPU Fan does a light “jump” but that is all the indication of anything inside the case that happens.
Since the motherboard light is on, and the CPU fan indicates a quick jolt of power, i’m hoping that it isn’t a dead diode or resister on the Motherboard that is causing this.
Has anyone had an issue like this?
And if so, what kinds of fixes were there?
I’m guessing it’s a fried motherboard….but i don’t have the tool to do a Bench-Test on it to check that it is working properly.
Any help would be great.
Thx
Try the components on another machine, if they all work then it has go be the board. That’s where I’d start.
I’m assuming its the board then.
All components are unhooked except for the power to the board, and it still won’t POST.
It’s probably the board. Usually you’ll be able to boot up a board normal and have it make some sort of signal.
Noticed a few bulging and leaking capacitors.
All the google’ing i have done tells me that the board is shot.
Sucks, since i built that machine 8 years ago and it ran better than alot of the new ones that you can buy.
Guess i’m building a new machine
It probably ran better than the new ones you can buy today, because you knew how to keep it clean and fast. Yea, that does suck, however you could probably spend 500 to build just as nice of a computer you have now. It’s to bad that you can’t transfer over the ram or processor. At least you can keep the same PSU and hard drives. However, you’re probably using IDE right now, so an upgrade to a sata HDD would show a difference in speed when loading up the os.
Yeah, I’ve already priced out a new tower….and it will run me around 500ish
I can use the same video card i have now.
I’m gonna have to piece together another machine so i can recover the data that was on the IDE HDD’s.
My other machines are on SATA, so i won’t be able to use those.
There is “always a way” to get the data back….will just take time.
You could always place that HDD in an enclosure. They cost about 10 bucks that converts IDE to USB 2.0