PC won't power on - not holding out much hope!

Hodge4ever

About six months ago, out of the blue my PC wouldn't power on, instead of looking into it I just cannibalised the HDD's & Optical Drives & built another one. Anyway as the case is quite large & taking up space I thought I'd have a look at sorting it with a view to trying to fix it and stick it on eBay.

I got another PSU to try but to my (pleasant) surprise it just worked, so I formatted & installed Windows. It was turned on approximately three of four times and seemed to be working great. However I came to turn it on this morning just to check it was O.K but unfortunately it wouldn't power on again :mad:


So far I have;

• Tried the PSU from my current PC (higher wattage) - won't power on
• Tried the PSU from the broken PC in my existing PC - it powers on first time
• Removed the power from the HDDs\optical drives & floppy - won't power on
• Added the above one at a time - still won't power on

The motherboard is a PC-Chips M810L and unhandily doesn't have an indicator light(s) to show the motherboard is receiving power

When attaching the power chord (kettle plug) and pressing the power button the fan spins for about 1/2 revolution but nothing else & this is only when plugging the kettle lead it for the first time.

Any ideas or is the general consensus that the motherboard is knackered? (its about four years old). Similar replacement boards on eBay are fairly inexpensive so will buy one if need be, but thought I'd canvas opinion first.

banger9365

fubard i would say or the little battery need changing

[Deleted User]

It does sound like a motherboard problem, but it's worth removing the RAM and CPU, then putting them back in again if you haven't already tried that (and the same for any expansion cards that you might have, like a graphics card).

Altahost

Erm..power switch on the case maybe. BIOS battery would not stop PC starting.

Open the PC, find the switch/led cables that come from the front of the PC. Normally located bottom right.

One is Power Switch / Reset Switch / HDD LED / Remone the Power switch and jump those to terminals with a screwdriver. If powers then switch is faulty. If not then PSU (which you have tried but I'd try another) or Motherboard at worst.

Hodge4ever

tentonine wrote: »

It does sound like a motherboard problem, but its worth removing the RAM and CPU out, then putting them back in again if you haven't already tried that (and the same for any expansion cards that you might have, like a graphics card).

I've already tried the RAM\expansion cards route (only 1 stick of RAM & an old PCI 56k Modem) but the CPU is soldered onto the motherboard - thanks anyway!

Hodge4ever

Altahost wrote: »

Erm..power switch on the case maybe. BIOS battery would not stop PC starting.

Open the PC, find the switch/led cables that come from the front of the PC. Normally located bottom right.

One is Power Switch / Reset Switch / HDD LED / Remone the Power switch and jump those to terminals with a screwdriver. If powers then switch is faulty. If not then PSU (which you have tried but I'd try another) or Motherboard at worst.

I thought it might be related to the power switch but didn't know how to test it, well, they say every day is a school day and I've definately learn't something new today, I'll give it a try & let you know - thanks!

Hodge4ever

Hodge4ever wrote: »

I thought it might be related to the power switch but didn't know how to test it, well, they say every day is a school day and I've definately learn't something new today, I'll give it a try & let you know - thanks!

Tried shorting it with the same result, half a fan turn when plugging in the power for the first time and then after that nothing

Thanks for the suggestions but I think the motherboard is KO'ed! I'll hit eBay this afternoon and look for a replacement.

fiddiwebb

Is it possible the motherboard could be shorting against the case somewhere?

Richie-from-the-Boro

" half a fan turn when plugging in the power "

Your MOBO is about 6 years old and was parked up because it goosed anyway, it has an AMI BIOS which should be telling you what's wrong by it's beep codes.

- what beep codes are you getting ?
- take the battery out tonight and don't put it back till Monday, then try again
- try a-n-other third PSU with everything out, cables/video/memory etc

info below may help ~

http://radel.inet.net.nz/m810lmr.html
http://radel.inet.net.nz/beep_codes.pdf

Hodge4ever

fiddiwebb wrote: »

Is it possible the motherboard could be shorting against the case somewhere?

That was one of my thoughts, so the motherboard isn't presently in the case.

Hodge4ever

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

" half a fan turn when plugging in the power "

Your MOBO is about 6 years old and was parked up because it goosed anyway, it has an AMI BIOS which should be telling you what's wrong by it's beep codes.

- what beep codes are you getting ?
- take the battery out tonight and don't put it back till Monday, then try again
- try a-n-other third PSU with everything out, cables/video/memory etc

info below may help ~

Beep codes = nothing whatsoever\no beeps, half a fan turn is literally all I get and ONLY when turning on at the mains and then pressing the power switch\shorting the pins.

The links were interesting but didn't seem to offer any help with my current situation.

Just for reference - The Motherboard version is 9.0m = Onboard Duron - permanently soldered, and overclocked. Onboard RAM - permanently soldered.

I may be missing something but how will removing the BIOS battery help?

I will try a third PSU jsut to see if it makes a difference - again thanks for your suggestions