Help, my PC just died

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pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#225978 13-Dec-2017 17:46

My PC just died during the middle of the day while I am not at home.

Nothing happens, not fans spinning, not even case of CPU fan, and the PUS fans not running at all.

I did try restart, pull off the power cable for a few minutes. and power it on, nothing seems happens, except a seemly high pitch noise comes from case, I think it is from PSU. And no Bep Bep speaker sounds at all.

I suspect my PSU died. The PC is about 7 years old. So some components going to fail sooner or latter. Just not sure which part failed, I don't want to replace the whole system yet.

Sideface

9233 posts

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#1919227 13-Dec-2017 18:23

I suspect my PSU died. The PC is about 7 years old. So some components going to fail sooner or latter. Just not sure which part failed, I don't want to replace the whole system yet.

Seven years is a good innings.
Your PC is now "antique".

Yes, it is probably the PSU.

Buy or build a new PC.
Don't waste money on the old one.

Sideface

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Rickles

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#1919230 13-Dec-2017 18:34

Yeah, @Sideface is probably correct, although I'd probably get the PSU tested (testers are cheap enough around $8 on TM) ... or get your local PC shop to run the test for you.

You could always install a second-hand PSU meantime until you sort out a new machine too.

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1919242 13-Dec-2017 18:56

Thanks guys.

I found a multimeter laying around somewhere, and did test a few output pins, all the yellow cable is output 0.6 V DC instead of 12 V, I suppose it is a another sign that it is the PSU failed.

Don't want fork out a couple of thousands bucks yet if I don't have to, but the thought of a much more speedy new PC is attempting!

I am going to take the old PSU out, ideally trying to have a PC shop test for me before go ahead and bought a new one. But yeah, if it's not the PSU, then it means that I do need a new build, the fact that I've already got a new PSU wouldn't hurt. The last thing I want is a new build using a potentially under-powered second-hand 500 W PSU.

Yeah, BTW, it is a ancient PC, but I keep upgrading and it is not slow. Currently it has a i7 860 CPU with 16 G of Ram, a couple of TB of HDDs with a 250 Gb SSD and GTX 1070 with a slightly under-powered PSU, which think about it, could be the issue.

andrewNZ

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#1919256 13-Dec-2017 19:26

The PSU won't have any output till it's ON.

Unplug the PSU from the motherboard, then use something (like a paperclip) to link the green wire and a black. If it's alive, it should spin up the fan.

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1919267 13-Dec-2017 19:49

andrewNZ: The PSU won't have any output till it's ON.

Unplug the PSU from the motherboard, then use something (like a paperclip) to link the green wire and a black. If it's alive, it should spin up the fan.

Thanks for the reminder. I've got a free PSU tester comes with PSU. Which probably doing the paperclip's job, and the PSU tester didn't bring the PSU alive, the voltage is still well under 12 V.

I think it's semi-official now: it's dead, Jim. :D

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1919504 14-Dec-2017 12:19

Update again.

Got the new PSU, happy. Went home this morning, plug the PSU with 24 pins and 8 CPU power pins only into the motherboard. And I got NOTHING, and absolute silence.

Test the new PSU with the PSU tester I've used yesterday, the PSU fan runs. test again with the old PSU, and the PSU fan never runs. So I confirmed that the PSU is dead. But it probably fried MB and CPU, or RAM as well...

I removed the Video card, leave only one Ram stick in the MB, and turned on the new PSU, same thing. So I don't know, probably the only next step sensible is buy a new set of MB/CPU/Ram stick...

A question, what's the minimum setup I can test to see the core system is running(PSU, MB and CPU I assume)? I would think I should at lest got the CPU fans running and a few Beeps if I plug the PSU with MB and have CPU intact (pretty the first thing I tried with the new PSU except have all the Rams in slot), if they are not fried.

1101

3121 posts

Uber Geek

#1920035 15-Dec-2017 09:49

pstar008:

Got the new PSU, happy. Went home this morning, plug the PSU with 24 pins and 8 CPU power pins only into the motherboard. And I got NOTHING, and absolute silence.

I have seen faulty PSU's burn out every component in the PC : everything toasted. Not very commen, but it happens
I wouldnt spend more $ on this without testing each part separately : unfortunately most home users cant really do this

It sounds like your motherboard is dead as well. Pull out all cables, remove vid card etc , start by shorting the power-on pins .

Also , a multimeter or power supply tester will tell you bugger all . Its an INDICATION, its not a test
Test power supplies, with a scope, under load . Anything else is not a test. Thats why you just swap out parts instead & see if that fixes it. :-)

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1920152 15-Dec-2017 12:55

1101:

pstar008:

Got the new PSU, happy. Went home this morning, plug the PSU with 24 pins and 8 CPU power pins only into the motherboard. And I got NOTHING, and absolute silence.

I have seen faulty PSU's burn out every component in the PC : everything toasted. Not very commen, but it happens
I wouldnt spend more $ on this without testing each part separately : unfortunately most home users cant really do this

It sounds like your motherboard is dead as well. Pull out all cables, remove vid card etc , start by shorting the power-on pins .

Also , a multimeter or power supply tester will tell you bugger all . Its an INDICATION, its not a test
Test power supplies, with a scope, under load . Anything else is not a test. Thats why you just swap out parts instead & see if that fixes it. :-)

Not done yet, got an old PC with same chip set with my MB, as you said, the most reliable way is testing components. and after I've done testing the CPU still runs on the working MB and PSU, I realised that I forget to turn the "power on" button on the PC I was testing.

So after re-connect pretty much everything back. I've got a boot-able PC, sort of, now passing BIOS, I've got a black screen with an flash cursor. I will test further today, but might be something to do with Video card, hopeful my brand new GTX 1070 not died because the old PSU.

The PSU tester is useful for me to test that one PSU doesn't even start the fan when turned on, the new one does at least got the fan spinning. So I can starting connect other component one by one until I've got a fully working system.

But yes, making progress, and lucky enough only need to replaced the PSU, so far.

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1920427 16-Dec-2017 01:18

I finally figured out the black screen issue is caused by my multi HDDs setups with Linux and Windows dual boot, as my boot sector is located in one of my old HDD as Windows have to be installed into a bootable HDD, yet my main system (Linux Mint) is on a newer SSD.

I used to using BIOS setting to set up the third HDD to be my boot drive, but after install the new PSU, I reset the BIOS to default which set the SSD as boot drive as it happened to be the first HDD/SSD, and that somehow freeze the who boot sequence, and I got no error message, just a black screen...

Confusing enough? But I finally got my system working again!

linw

2837 posts

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#1920460 16-Dec-2017 08:08

Whew! Well done.

hagfish

23 posts

Geek

#1921879 19-Dec-2017 13:14

Great that you sorted it. In response to your previous question about the heart/lung replacement, I was in a similar position recently (half a glass of wine thru the top blow-hole...) and found searching TradeMe's 'motherboards' category turns up lots of 'combo' results, where sellers list a mobo+cpu (and often RAM) pulled from a working system, and sold as one lot. There's lots of feeble old Core2 combos for around $40, and also Core i7 combos, for around the $300 mark.

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1923305 21-Dec-2017 18:02

hagfish:

Great that you sorted it. In response to your previous question about the heart/lung replacement, I was in a similar position recently (half a glass of wine thru the top blow-hole...) and found searching TradeMe's 'motherboards' category turns up lots of 'combo' results, where sellers list a mobo+cpu (and often RAM) pulled from a working system, and sold as one lot. There's lots of feeble old Core2 combos for around $40, and also Core i7 combos, for around the $300 mark.

Yes, 2nd CPU and MB would be a option if I have to

But the system I have now do need a heart replacement sooner or later. I missed the convenient of having USB 3 connection on my PC, mostly for faster charger. And I noticed that a recent Celeron system load Fallout 4 much faster(half of the time or less) at QHD resolution with the best quality (video car is similar RX 580 VS GTX 1080). So I will have a few benefit if do upgrade MB and CPU. But again, on my term.

Now the PSU been replaced, so except the CD-ROM and old HDDs as storage not my main OS partition. as I've got recent video card, a Fractional design R5 I replaced this year. Samsung 256 SSD replaced last year, the only thing left for upgrade is the heart/lung. I probably going to get a new pair early next year as the intention is keep them for at least 5 years. I would expect them outlast my current system, which is slightly over 7 years.