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PC totally toast... don't know where to start


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My DYI PC won't start anymore. I don't even get diagnostic beeps. I'm prepared to RMA the board but before I do that I thought I'd pop in here and see if that kind of symptoms has been seen before.

 

It started a few weeks ago when the boot process didn't seem to find the hard drive - it would then look up the raid configuration, didn't find any, then would reboot, and go through this little game a couple or three times and finally find the HD and boot up. So at this point I was kinda zeroing in on the HD, even though everything worked PERFECTLY once the PC actually started to boot Windows.

 

I tried a few things like checking connections, I changed the SATA port to which the HD is connected, tweaked the BIOS, even did a CMOS reset and thought I got the PC more or less stable... but this morning it won't start at all. As I said no diagnostic beep... nothing. The monitor doesn't even come on. All the fans (cpu, gpu, case, psu...) kick off and run fine, but that's it.

 

If anybody has a suggestion, I'd like to hear it :)

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That PSU was barely enough to power that rig. Maybe try one with more amps available on the 12v rail in particular. I'm surprised it worked with only 18Amps and that vid card. My TP 430 with 26Amps 12V. rail struggles to power my NF3 250. I modded it to put out max amps so it wouldn't be a problem.

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It's been working fine for 18 months. If it wasn't powerful enough, wouldn't have it failed before?

 

Also, wouldn't it fail during say playing a game that stresses the 6800GT... and not during the boot process?

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Overload anything and it's life shortens. Borrow a strong psu if you can and try it. A good psu is the first thing one should consider when choosing parts cause if it goes out it can take hardware with it. learners permit is giving great advice.

ps...AMD recomends 18a on the 12v for the 64 and ya have to add hardware reqirements to that.

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Def. the power supply, Under todays standards, I wouldnt use anything less than 500

 

 

me:

 

580W

 

PCU VGU & chipset water cooled

1 120mm radiator w/fan - AWC-02 head unit acts as pump(i like the head unit display /radiator :) ) kept it from previous rig

 

1 80mm radiator w/fan (that doubles as an exauhst)

 

1 small passive inline radiator just before CPU

 

1 dual 120mm radiator w/o fans :)

 

An idea my buddy turned me onto, instead of several radiators humming why not several passive? result, less fans, less power consumption and still running aprox 32c under full load. Mind you its a new rig and im still running stock settings as I work out the kinks

 

oh and, the chameleon LED case lighting and a dvdr/cdr/cd-rom (dont do much cd to cd action Id rather put them on my other HDD anyways so why waste space heat adn power)

 

Just food for thought, most of you probably already have tried it. But I love my new cooling system 2 fans in a whole case :D cant beat that with a stick

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I had the same thing goin on here except I had a Echostar 480 watt psu. Could not figure out why I did not have enough. After lookin at the tag os the side of the psu. I noticed that there is only 1 listing for +12 volts@17 amps. After some thought and figuring out my requirements, I cound not believe the puter even started.

I had called around locally and found an Echostar@$50, 680 watt psu. Went lookin for them (Echostar) to do research, could not find the company. Needless to say i did not buy that as a replacement. The 1 I did buy (in sig) is rated @ 580 and has 2 + 12volt listings (I presume the 2 listings = dual rail, Im sure some one will correct me if I am wrong) totaling 34 amps (1@18, 1@16). And is easily found on the web.

I got the 580 @ $60, including shipping, with a $20 rebate, and I am sure I have enough power for now.

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Yeah, doesn't sound like a PSU problem to me either. Try removing teh power/reset switches and use the onboard ones, and check the position of the clear CMOS jumper. Really sounds like a board issue, but wheter it's dead or just mis-configured somehow, hard to say.

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Yeah Ive had my share of power issues too, and it does manifest itself in different ways

Games freezing, HD clicking, BSOD, drives not being seen on boot.

 

best to rule out the other components first before you RMA the board. better safe than sorry IMO. you dont want to get a new board back and the problem is still there

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Ill second that one, I RMA'd my board (even paid a tech to look at it) turns out the proc was what was bad :) waste of 2 weeks and money!...aside from PSU maybe the IDE drivers need to be installed/updated? He is using sata..Does the HDD spin? Possible the drive is dead. To tough to say w/o more details I guess I spoke to soon before, however I would double check my PSU becuase I have seen that several times :)

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