A7M............. Dead???

[bluewest11]

A few days ago I was sitting at my computer on the Internet and I lost all power to my system, My power supply died. I removed PSU and fitted it to an older working computer just to make sure my assumption that my PSU was to blame was correct and indeed it was well and truly gone. I ordered a brand new Enermax 550W PSU and fitted it when it arrived. When I had connected everything back up after taking the opportunity to give all the componants a good clean with compressed air I tried to boot up my PC. All the fans and everything kicked in and sprang back to life except the bloody thing would not boot up. No singnal to monitor or sound of HD going through the boot process.

Action taken so far:

Removed memory and reseated(2x 256 crucial DDR),

Exchanged AGP card with a spare I know works for sure,

Removed CPU and and cleaned off all Arctic silver2 and re-applied to make sure it was only on the core,

Reset CMOS (twice) bios 1005,

Removed memory again and tried 1 stick at a time,

Removed all memory and tried to boot without any memory installed at all to see if I got any warning beeps from MB(No beeps were heard at all)

Checked all connections,

Tried booting with nothing installed except Graphics card.


All the above componants worked before my PSU died.

I am now puzzled as to what steps I can take next to get my system running again. Could the PSU dying have damaged something? I would just like to add that my electricity runs through a surge protector before it gets to my PSU to protect against surges.


Any help with this situation and suggestions you may have to get this system up and running will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[MacGyver]

If there are no beeps when booting, then something is definitely fried. Probably the motherboard. Even though you have a surge protector, that isn't going to help you against this kind of disaster. Remember, you are putting 120/240V into the power supply and getting 5/12V out normally, if the power supply fails, then there is potential for a lot more voltage to go to places it shouldn't.

If you don't have enough extra parts to troubleshoot this, take your computer to a service shop so they can figure out what part(s) are toast and need to be replaced. But the motherboard is likely the culprit.

[freddy]

and now the good news!!!

had a bx machine here a couple of weeks ago that had a PSU failure, (240 v UK) as i was stripping it down i realised there was a major prob ,,,so i called the customer back to see the probs,

the m/board was goosed
the video card (agp)
the h/drive
the dvd
the scsi card
the scsi writer
and the sound card.

the intel P11/111 500 slot 1 was still working , as was the memory.

in the end we just boxed it up and he rung his insurance Co. ,,,,they replaced it with a p111 x 1g ,,with all new parts ,,,

all i got out of it was the new PSU ,,,,WOW!!!! but he wanted ME putting back on (so i charged him - his cd) and i got his unregestered xp retail inc docs (which i then sold and installed retail price)

sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings ,,,check items out on another machine ,,,as u could have potted a few of them


freddy

[bluewest11]

OK, thanks for getting back to me guys, you have confirmed my worst fears. I think I will do has suggested and take the computer to a service center to find out what exactly happened as I do not have the resources to do the testing myself. I am not going to spend more money on new hardware if the same thing could happen again. I will begin the salvage operation shortly to see what still works.

Yesterday I invested £15.00 in a couple of 10pks of Budweisser from Rhythm & Booze, time to cash in I think! See you later and thx again!

[bluewest11]

I thought I would update this topic to inform you what was done to resolve this issue. As I said before, I ordered a brand new Enermax 550W PSU to replace my Antec 400W PSU and when I fitted the new PSU the computer would not bootup although all the fans were spinning and the green ATX power warning light was glowing. I now assumed the failed PSU had damaged the Motherboard and other computer componants so I decided to make this post to see if someone could produce some kind of miracle solution, however, the other guys who kindly responded to my post confirmed my worst fears so I decided to get used to the idea of a brand new system (eventually). Sitting in my chair extremly board I decided to have a mess about with the computer. I was using an old Cyrix 300mhz system to access the Internet so I thought I would try out my brandnew gleaming Enermax 550W in this older computer just for something to do. I removed the 230W generic PSU and fitted the Enermax. Making sure everything was connected I hit the power switch and the machine started up, nothing showed up on the monitor and and the machine lost all power after approx 4 seconds! I hit the power switch again, still nothing. Right, Now it was the generic power supplys turn to be tested in my Athlon system. It worked! My A7M based system came back to life and it booted up as normal. The damded Enermax 550W PSU I had just had delivered to replace my Antec PSU was faulty. Would you believe it? I contacted the supplier and obtained an RMA. I also told tech support I would not be requiring a replacement as I now question the reliability and quality of Enermax PSU and I would not put any more componants with a "Made in China" sticker stuck on it in my case (I had little patience at the time). I got back on my Cyrix system after refitting its 230W PSU and hit the web in search of an alternative brand of PSU. It wasn't long before I landed on the site of "PC Power & Cooling. I checked out the links on their site looking for reseller info on where I could purchase one of their PSU in the UK but could not find any such info. I then decided to check out all the "Major" retailers stock listings but guess what? No one seems to stock them over here. I when back to <a href="http://www.pcpowercooling.com/" target="_blank">http://www.pcpowercooling.com/</a> and decided to take a risk and make my first trans atlantic order. I am now very pleased I did! I ordered a Turbo-Cool 450 ATX high performance PSU at $215.00 on Sunday night UK time and it arrived from CA USA to South Yorkshire, England complete and very well packaged to my front door early on Thursday morning (a good sign I thought). I opened up my delivery and compared the new PSU from PP&C to my old Antec and Enermax. There was no comparison, The PC Power & Cooling PSU is very well made with what looks to be heavy duty internal componants compared to the lesser quality Enermax and Antec supplys. I fitted the 450W Turbo Cool PSU inside my case and guess what? IT WORKS A TREAT! Problem solved!!! I would just like to add that I called PC Power & Cooling twice, once to check my order was processed without problems and once to thank them for an extreamly excellent service and an extreamly excellent high quality product(rare to find these days) and on both occasions my call was answered instantly unlike dabs.com here in the UK where I got the Enermax from who had me on hold for 1 hour and 10 minutes when I called customer services to arrange and RMA and collection. I did not keep the phone to my ear the whole time and went for a shower and a meal and managed to do a few other things whilst on hold and my call was answered. Thx again PP&C all my future hardware orders will be sent to you!


PS: I would just like to add that dabs are usually very good and usually offer a very good service however, trying to get hold of a human being is becoming more and more difficult and unless it improves my orders will become more and more rare.

[Gameguru]

Really glad to see that you got your system up and running. There is nothing worse to me than having my own system down. I just gave my backup to my dad so I hope that I can manage to stay away from major probs for a while!!

[freddy]

glad you sorted it.


dabs.com ,,,,sucks

they now offer no tech support , all questions have to be answered by e-mail. ....sucks.


i remember coming out of dabs one day , and thinking they had give me wrong parts , got on motorway (j6 /m61 ) anyone local ,,,,,had done 65 miles before i got an answer.

PS anyone in UK ,,,,,dabs are now using 0845 ,,,locate an old copy of PCPLUS and use the 0800 No. ,,,,,stuff um ,,,,,
they have moved there collection place across the road ,,,,and if u go in in person ,,,,expect 30-45 min wait ,,,,and it comes down a little convayer belt ,,,,


they DO NOT want retail/trade customers at the counter , all they want is credit cards ,,,and sit on your money untill they get stock .

LOAD OF BOLLOCKS DABS ,,,,,and there warrenty service is *HIT