PC probs

This has got me scratching my head.
Bro's PC isnt turning on since the storm earlier in the week. Open it up, I cant find any scorch marks etc. to indicate it got fried. The power light on the mobo is on, CPU and PSU (400W) fans spin on for about 10secs when turned on, then it turns off. Sometimes it will even beep. I plug in a spare PSU (old 250W) and pretty much the same thing happens.
So I make the effort and plug in my PSU (450W) and it wont even turn on at all :S (light on mobo is on tho). Taken out RAM, drives, still wont stay on or turn on. I am just confused why my PSU wont work at all.
Ill prob give up but thought I might post here incase anyone has any ideas.

so when you press the power button the fans dont spin or anything?

On my PSU no. On the original PSUs and another old spare, yes they spin.

have you tried swapping the ram with another working system, putting in a known working vga card etc etc?

i have kinda the same prob with a friends pc the PSU is fine tryed a swap of everything all but Mobo. my guess is the mobo is screwed so im replacing it with a DFI one and the same mobo for my lan pc.

In the past i have found burnt out tracks on the mobo mainly around the power supply area of the USB and the 12V 4 pin socket and the AGP/PCIE near the PC power light/power plug/PC speaker pins on the underside.

i hope this helps with yours if not might spark and idea:-D

Might sound silly Matt, but maybe a power button isssue, try disconnecting everthing except power, even remove ram, including power, reset and light cables and fire it up with a screwdriver. If the CPU fan keeps running, then backtrack.

Considered that. How do u start it up with the screwdriver? Just touch it on the jumpers? I wont get zapped?

also be sure to take the bios battery out, wait a bit (power not connected), and put it back in.

Quote from Kawolski;375212:
Considered that. How do u start it up with the screwdriver? Just touch it on the jumpers? I wont get zapped?

yeah, short the power button jumper, you wont get shocked

My guess is motherboard is gone, try his PSU in your computer and my guess is it will run fine.

Since it coincided with the storm I think it's highly unlikely to be the power button and since your getting different power responses with different power supplies I think it even more less likely to be the power button.

If you want to salvage his parts try one at a time in another PC to identify what he can keep.

Quote from paladin;375216:
yeah, short the power button jumper, you wont get shocked

I seem to recall seeing someone do this at DGA...3 or 4 I think.
The funny thing was, it was how he always started his PC :p

Dude it looks like your mb is done and dusted, but its unusual for it to boot up the fans then die, so you might want to try using a paperclip with your psu to be sure.

A mate had a simular issue with his PC, although it would start after 20 or so tries, but if left overnight would have same issue again. This went on for 6mths or so before he ordered new MB/RAM/CPU/PSU/GPU and what you know, same problem, it was the damn power button although it appeared to be working correctly it just wasn't right.

Stanger things have happened but when storms are around it can only get weirder.

Out of case bench testing is always the best for a hard to find fault such as yours using a known working PSU.

this happened to a mate of mine at a recent dga and we did everything... i considered my self pretty cluey when it came to hardware issues but i was at a loss so i said bugger it something must be really broken... then my mate got the shits and whacked the top of his computer and BEEP BEEP the computer started up and ran and has been running fine ever since :p

Capacitors gone pop is my first assumption. New mobo time.

Blown is one thing, but check to see if any have actually burst and are leaking - sometimes hard to spot.

If so, you really don't want to be doing anything at all with it all. Get it out of there.

Wouldn't you be able to tell if its leaking by its putrid smell?

Quote from ZeReaper;375217:
My guess is motherboard is gone, try his PSU in your computer and my guess is it will run fine.

Before you do this check his PSU's output voltages.*

*:With a multimeter.**

**:Might need to short pin 14 (16 on the new atx?)to a ground pin.***

***:Green to black.

just hit it

Then quit it.

Quote from Darren;375223:

Out of case bench testing is always the best for a hard to find fault such as yours using a known working PSU.

Thats why im so suprised MY psu doesnt even boot it (but the old ones do). Tried the screwdriver thing on the power jumper. Cleared the CMOS memory. No diff. Gonna try out the RAM and PSU in my mobo tonight and see whats salvageable.

i like the gigabyte UD mobos there made to last solid Capacitors and the way its made it also costs more :D but its worth it!! like the gigabyte Nforce 650SLI UD4 i got it in late 2006 early 2007 and its still going strong Nforce 650SLI UD4L

Quote from Xolares;375267:
i like the gigabyte UD mobos there made to last solid Capacitors and the way its made it also costs more :D but its worth it!! like the gigabyte Nforce 650SLI UD4 i got it in late 2006 early 2007 and its still going strong Nforce 650SLI UD4L

Pretty standard these days with most motherboard brands doing the Japanese solid capacitors thing. I hope your right though with the extended life and hope its not another marketing gimmick.

Thanks for all the replies. Got a new mobo from IT Shack (awesome guys) and it worked first go :)

Quote from Kawolski;375302:
Thanks for all the replies. Got a new mobo from IT Shack (awesome guys) and it worked first go :)

IT Shack have helped me out numerous times now :)

I also third the motion of IT Shack. I buy most of my gear there and great bunch if guys to talk to as well.

Just orderd for lan pc LANPARTY UT P45-T2RS mobo from them. hopefully it will be a kill mobo over my old one Gigabyte Nforce 650SLI:grin: