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[Vallarfax]

Last night before I went to bed I tried out one of my friends heatsink fans on my own computer. It was one of those 3 pronged plugs, and I didn't even use it in place of my own heatsink fan, just somewhere else on the board. When I was done testing it, I just pulled on it real hard to unplug it and my computer decided to hard reset itself because of that.

Now I woke up this morning and my computer is dead. The only way I can get life out of it is if I switch off the power supply, wait 10 seconds, and then press the power button. I have one of those led fans in there, and that lights up for about half a second and the heatsink fan looks like it tries to move, but then does nothing. All this is crazy, because it seems like it would be one of two things to me. The power supply, which has been nothing but awesome since I built this computer, or the motherboard. The motherboard is an ASUS P4SDX and it has one of those onboard LED's that show when there is standby power going to it, and that light is lit when I switch the power supply on. I just don't get it. I think it's the power supply, yet at the same time there is power trying to get to the computer to turn on. I think it's the motherboard, but the standby power led is lit and the lan cable light still blinks.

What do you guys think this could be? Please help me out here, this friend I'm helping out is a girl that I've really been trying to get with, and things have been going really awesome. She thinks I'm computer savvy, but that myth will go out the window when she hears about this thing being busted. Could there be any connection between the machine not powering on and maybe the conection between the front panel of the case and the motherboard? The fan connection was right near the front panel setup and I may have unplugged something, but they all seem to be in fine order. Should I just try ripping everything out and rebuilding it, or does anyone know for sure what the problem is?

 

[alejob]

So you were pluging and unpluging stuff while the computer was on. Thats not very smart.

 

[xsarien]

Protip: Poke and prod and pull at the innards of your computer while it's on at your own risk.

 

[Vallarfax]

Okay I know I shouldn't have unplugged the fan while the computer was still on, but I only mention that because it happened last night and the computer stopped workin sometime around 5:30am ish, while the unplugging happened at around 1.

Can someone just tell me what they think is wrong with this thing? I'm on my roommates computer, so I'll try to check as much as possible. Is it common for a power supply to just stop working, or slowly stop working? I mean, like I said if it is the power supply then it's the first time I've had trouble with it in less than 2 years.

 

[cvkpaladin]

:lol

First make sure that you have the power switch connections plugged into the right pins on the motherboard. Also, make sure that all the power connections are firmly connected to where they are supposed to be. They probably are judging by the fact that you can get some action out of your machine by pressing the power switch. So if that don't work, try testing another power supply with your machine. Other then that all I can say is that you may have short circuited your motherboard when you pulled out the hintsink by method of static electricity. If you did that... well, you're screwed.

 

[Vallarfax]

:lol

First make sure that you have the power switch connections plugged into the right pins on the motherboard. Also, make sure that all the power connections are firmly connected to where they are supposed to be. They probably are judging by the fact that you can get some action out of your machine by pressing the power switch. So if that don't work, try testing another power supply with your machine. Other then that all I can say is that you may have short circuited your motherboard when you pulled out the hintsink by method of static electricity. If you did that... well, you're screwed.

Hey Carl, wats up?

I checked those connections about 10 times already. I understand what ur saying about pulling out the fan, but I don't understand why my computer would wait 4 hours to finally just collapse. Do you think I should bother having the school computer store look at it? That place is such a waste of time. So if all the connections are correct and I'm still getting nothing, u think I need to get a new MoBo?

 

[cvkpaladin]

Nothing much has been going on. Atleast nothing worth noting that is. Anyways, if the school computer store doesn't charge anything (or if its not that much), there's no harm in taking it to them. They may actually be able to help you. You may have overlooked something and didn't realize it. Other then that, have you tried testing another power supply? It doesn't really take all that much effort to make sure thats not the problem. Also, have you tried resetting the CMOS?

 

[Vallarfax]

Nothing much has been going on. Atleast nothing worth noting that is. Anyways, if the school computer store doesn't charge anything (or if its not that much), there's no harm in taking it to them. They may actually be able to help you. You may have overlooked something and didn't realize it. Other then that, have you tried testing another power supply? It doesn't really take all that much effort to make sure thats not the problem. Also, have you tried resetting the CMOS?

just tried resetting the CMOS. Nothing. System won't even get that far into loading for that to be a factor. I'll try another power supply when my roommate gets back from his class. Thanx alot for the help man.

 

[ElyrionX]

I would say either your motherboard is screwed or your processor is.

Recently, my PC refused to start up in the same way as yours. I knew that my processor (P4 2.8E) had some heat issues but regardless of how long I let the system cool, it still refused to boot up. So I thought that perhaps my chip got fried or something.

What I did was to remove the processor's heatsink-fan combo (which was a MAJOR bitch to detach) and the CPU chip itself from the motherboard. I placed it back after checking that the thing looked ok (no ends broken or "burnt", if that's even possible). And lo and behold, the PC booted up nicely and everything has been working fine since. So you might want to give that a shot.

 

[cvkpaladin]

No problem on the help, hopefully GMU is going well for ya besides this computer problem. One other thing, and it probably won't be of much help either, have you tried testing your RAM? If none of my suggestions work, like I said, try taking your machine down to the Computer Store. Buying a new motherboard should only be your last option.

 

[Vallarfax]

Thanx Carl and Elyrion. El I'm off to try ur suggestion right now.

Thanx for the suggestion Elyrion, but that didn't work for me.

 

[ElyrionX]

Thanx Carl and Elyrion. El I'm off to try ur suggestion right now.

Good luck! BTW, just to give you a little more hope, I'm on an ASUS motherboard as well. It's a P4P800 Deluxe.

 

[Vallarfax]

Alright, so I'm about to test my power supply in my friends computer. All I need to plug in is the ATX 12V connector, and ATX power connector, right? Or do I also need to connect some of the devices to the power connectors? Someone help me out here.

 

[Vallarfax]

C'mon. Someone has to know. If I just unplug his main power connector and plug mine in then that should be enough to test it, right?

 

[etiolate]

Maybe you have too many custom tags on your computer.

 

[DJ Sl4m]

Powersupply, they go out very easily, esp doing something like this, lol