Desktop froze, then gone mental when turned back on!

dontlikemondays

Hi Guys,

My old AMD Athlon tower froze the other day so I manually turned it off. When I turned it back on, it starts up all the fans but nothing on monitor. One of the fans is whining very loud and sounds like it's coming from the power unit, but I can't be sure.

I have cleaned with a vac all the fans I can see inc the CPU fan, but I don't think it's those causing the trouble. I've tried removing the Memory cards and seeing if it bleeps, but nothing.

Any ideas for me?
It's doing my head in!

AJXX

Off the top of my head I'd say blown capacitor on the motherboard.

kwikbreaks

When an old PC fails the reason isn't always obvious but given the incredibly low prices old machines fetch on eBay the solution is.

esuhl

AJXX wrote: »

Off the top of my head I'd say blown capacitor on the motherboard.

Or maybe a faulty PSU...?

dontlikemondays

Where is the PSU
Does that mean Power Switch Unit?

Fightsback

AJXX wrote: »

Off the top of my head I'd say blown capacitor on the motherboard.

That's amazing diagnostics !

It could of course be a zener perhaps or a bucket load of other components.

AJXX wrote: »

OP are you on some sort of potty pilgrimage against Microsoft?

Your post came across as nothing but up your own **** and holier than thou.

At least I actually know what I'm taking about rather than blurting out some form of Voodoo fault diagnosis. How did you arrive at that conclusion, tarot cards ?

dontlikemondays wrote: »

Where is the PSU
Does that mean Power Switch Unit?

PSU - stands for power supply unit, it's the square metal block that you put the mains plug into on the computer and steps down the mains voltage to that suitable for the computer components.

A very common failure point and the first place to look. Can be had quite cheaply. Make and model of system ?

esuhl

dontlikemondays wrote: »

Where is the PSU
Does that mean Power Switch Unit?

As Fightsback says, it's the power supply unit, which converts mains power into the low-voltage power used by computers.

Here's a picture of the inside of a PC case. Everything has been removed (the motherboard, hard drives, etc.) except the PSU, which is the cuboid box at the top left of the case. The mains power cable plugs in to the side of the PSU that's on the back of the PC.

OGR

If you can get hold of a spare PSU to try, know that you don't have to plug everything in and screw it down to test it.

Just take any connectors out you have going to the motherboard from the existing PSU and swap it for the new one, usually it will only be 1 or 2. Then rest the test PSU on the case and feed it power and try turning on. Don't go to the effort of completely removing the old one before you know it is at fault. If the system POSTs and you get a picture then you know to take out the other PSU and start wiring it up to any other devices such as drives.

If that doesn't work personally I would look at the CPU next.

AJXX

Fightsback wrote: »

At least I actually know what I'm taking about rather than blurting out some form of Voodoo fault diagnosis. How did you arrive at that conclusion, tarot cards ?

Haha! Blown capacitor is a perfectly logical explanation, but nobody could know for sure what the issue is. PSU/Capacitor etc... Your diagnostics of a PSU simply for the reason that it's a "common problem" is no better.

Don't see why you felt the need to bring this argument over from the other thread, but I'll give everyone else some context...

This is what you said;

Fightsback wrote: »

Another idiotic design decision brought to you by that non-security vendor called Microsoft.

Edit

for those fools who bought a windows phone:

I didn't realise this was currently in windows phone (8.1) as well, I'm not stupid enough to buy a windows phone nor any of my relatives or friends so had never come across it before.

At least I actually know what I'm taking about

I'm sure you do. I may have been a little harsh by saying you sounded "nothing but up your own **** and holier than thou." but really what did you expect? You say you "know what you're talking about" and at the same time denounce off hand a perfectly fine mobile OS, not only that you state anybody using it is a "fool" and "stupid" - without any logical reasons why or supporting arguments as to why this is the case?

You just simply denounce everyone using it to be "fools" and "stupid" because "you know what you're talking about" - yet apparently have never even used it first hand?

Whichever way you want to look at it your comments on that thread did come across as very up your own bum. Maybe tone things down a little next time and you won't get people bringing you up on such stupid comments?

Fightsback

AJXX wrote: »

Haha! Blown capacitor is a perfectly logical explanation, but nobody could know for sure what the issue is. PSU/Capacitor etc... Your diagnostics of a PSU simply for the reason that it's a "common problem" is no better.

Don't know much about component level repair do you ?

Got some poor chap befuddled chasing ghost caps when he first needs to check what voltages the PSU is kicking out.

dontlikemondays

C'mon guys
Calm down !!!!!!

OK, back to MY problem, lol.

I haven't got spare PSU so maybe take a chance on it being that and buy reconditioned one from ebay
It's an Antec true power 650.
There's an awful lot of wires going into it. I presume these are all bundled into one port, hopefully?

just checked £78 on ebay. I could get new tower for £180 so it's a bit of a risk aint it?

Any ideas?