PC not booting, requesting advice.

[bluehorizon]

A friend of mine away at college has a home built PC (by me), that's having an issue. The PC won't boot. When the power is cycled on, the light on the MB turns on (red) and the fans begin to spin, but the power goes out shortly (just a split second) after it's turned on. The PC was unplugged while he was away for break and this happened the first time he tried turning it on when he got back.

I've tried to troubleshoot with him over the phone, but I'm out of ideas, and I'd like to see if there's anything I might have missed. Any suggestions?

 

[Andres3605]

that happened to my with the stock raidmax psu, and the psu was death may be your case

 

[bluehorizon]

Originally posted by: Andres3605
that happened to my with the stock raidmax psu, and the psu was death may be your case

It has an antec truepower 430 in it. Not a bad PSU, and probably less than a year old...

 

[LTC8K6]

CPU fan failure? That would cause it to start up and immediately shut down.

 

[db2]

If you are sure it is not the power supply --
are there any beeps before it shuts down ?
did someone rearrange connectors such as keyboard and mouse while he was away?
sometimes reseating the memory has helped.

 

[2Xtreme21]

When transporting, there very well may have been some fragile connection knocked loose. When I transfered my tower for a LAN party, it started up, beeped, and then shut down. I opened it up and realized the CPU Fan connection had came loose. With a re-seating, the comp was good to go.

 

[gibbsk]

It sounds like a PSU issue to me. I had a similar problem with a family member's computer. I used a spare PSU to see if that was the problem, and sure enough it was.

If he has a spare PSU, I would suggest connecting it up to see if it will boot with a different PSU. If that is the problem, I would contact Antec for a replacement PSU (since they have a 3-year warranty on their PSUs).

Best of luck!

 

[ThePiston]

no beeps = CPU or PSU, the fact that it has some power makes me think the CPU needs reseating or has died which would be rare unless he over-overclocked. Have him reseat CPU, if still nothing, then try another PSU.

 

[gibbsk]

Originally posted by: ThePiston
no beeps = CPU or PSU, the fact that it has some power makes me think the CPU needs reseating or has died which would be rare unless he over-overclocked. Have him reseat CPU, if still nothing, then try another PSU.

Good info, but I personally am inclined to leave the CPU until last when problem solving. For me, the less I have to touch the CPU, the less likely I'll mess it up. Replacing the PSU isn't too involved, so that is what I would suggest doing first. If that doesn't solve it, then you pretty much have no choice but to mess with the CPU.

As I mentioned before, I had what sounds like the same issue as your friend. In my case it turned out to be the PSU (even though the case was getting a little bit of power before shutting off).

 

[KBtn]

before suspecting any hardware failures, be positive everything is reseated and all the cables are tightly connected. You would be amazed what happens when there is a llose connection