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Computer just ups and dies. No POST, not even a POST code.

Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Got another one of these cases.
Computer was working fine in the morning. Go to one class, come back, turn on the monitor, move the mouse to bring the monitor out of power saving mode, and nothing happens. One hard drive light is stuck on. Reboot. Nothing happens, past the keyboard lights blinking when I switch the main power switch.
Clarification: It does power on. The keyboard lights blink, everything turns on. It just sits there then.

I have it apart now, with video, RAM, and CPU in place, no hard drives, and a PCI POST card. The card doesn't even give a hex readout. Two LEDs on it do come on, indicating "Reset pass" and "CLK pass". No hex code though.
What can cause there to be no POST code? I've not seen that happen before. I have reset the BIOS too. No change. I didn't smell any smoke either, so I don't think anything got outright fried.


Barebone Specs:
Abit NF7-S Rev2.0
Athlon XP-2400+ 35W mobile
2 x 512MB PC3200 GeIL ValueRAM
1 x 256MB PC3200 GeIL ValueRAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro videocard
Seasonic SS-460AGX Power supply

Maybe this'll finally be the reason I need to get the upgrade I've been wanting. Just sucks that I might have to spend the next week (yes, a whole week) without my beloved PC.


Update, with question: the capacitor that's dead is a 6.3v 1800uF capacitor. Will a 2200uF cap from Radioshack work for at least a week?
 
Tried 1 stick of RAM at a time, nothing.
Tested voltages with a multimeter: +3.3V is at 3.27V. +5.0V is at 5.11V. +12V is at 12.27V.

Also perhaps of interest: My monitor sits idle, in power-save mode, until I turn on the PC. Then it comes to life, but only to display its own messages of "No signal" and then "Entering power save mode".

Now, this may be suspect - something has been amiss in the video subsystem: the monitor would simply blink off intermittently from time to time, for less than a second. This may well be due to a cold or cracked solder joint - it's had several of them in the past, which I've repaired. I just tested it off of my laptop's output, and it had no problem finding and displaying the image.

This is one of the rare times when I'm alone here in the apartment (campus apartment, shared with 3 other people) so I can't ask anyone for parts to swap and test.

Also unusual: The Radeons usually freak out and start producing beep codes if they don't have their supplemental power connector hooked up. This one doesn't seem to care. I'm tempted to just give up on it for now, and start taking recommendations for a midrange replacement, something PCI-Express-based.
 
But the main voltages check out just fine.
Though conveniently, I have no idea where I put my power supply tester. It's one of those things that plugs into the ATX plug and measures 5 different voltages, giving them pass/fail "grades". No idea where I put it, or if I even brought it with me to college.
CPU looks fine, and I don't see any bulging capacitors.
 
Jeff,

How do the caps look? Any bulging or cracked?
That generation MB seems suspect to me.

 
Nope, already checked for bulging caps.
None even look suspect.

I also tried swapping out the BIOS chip with a spare I have. No change.


And this is the longest time this apartment has been otherwise empty since Thanksgiving break. I've never known the other guys to be away this long, especially with projects coming due, and finals next week. Now, the one time when I need their help, they've all vanished.

The best part about this - all my assignments, e-mails, and otherwise important stuff is on my RAID 5 drives, so I can't just pop them into my IDE/USB adapter and pull data off them.
 
If the system won't POST, the problem is obviously hardware, and the only way to debug it is to eliminate as much as possible, and then try replacing faulty parts until you find the failed one.

There are a few basic things you can try, like resetting the BIOS (you said you did that), and just removing and reseating everything. Sometimes a loose connector finally becomes a little too loose and suddenly seems to 'break'.

It sounds like your PSU is probably OK, although it may be worth trying to find another one to test with.

First thing I would try is removing everything from the MB except for the CPU, video card, and one stick of RAM. Try it again. If it powers up, either one of the devices you removed is bad, or something like the IDE/SATA controller chip or PCI bus has failed.

If you can find another PSU, I'd try that next.

If it doesn't power up, it's either the MB, CPU, GPU, or RAM. Try the other DIMM (and the other memory slot, if it can boot with the memory in different slots.)

If it doesn't power up, it's either the MB, CPU, or GPU. Try another graphics card (maybe a PCI card if you have one, to eliminate the AGP/PCIe slot as a culprit).

At this point you might try removing the MB from the case and running it on a non-conductive surface (to eliminate potential grounding issues).

If it doesn't power up, it's either the MB or CPU. Try another CPU.

If it still won't power up, it's almost certainly the motherboard. Or else your PSU is borderline and providing enough power to spin its fans but not enough to really boot the system.
 
I figure this is going to wait until winter break. I'll just have to use my laptop I guess until then. Maybe I can borrow a videocard (assuming that's the problem), or somehow get a PC to stick my RAID card in to get the data off it that I need. I guess I'll start perusing the "Rate my rig" type threads, or else start my own. I have no clue what hardware is good now. I'd like a dual-core processor. For video, even just something marginally better than my Radeon 9800 Pro AGP would be fine, only in PCI-e. I'm just so out of the loop now. I haven't kept up on any hardware since the Socket-A era. I didn't think I'd be upgrading until sometime after 2009.
There's STILL no one else here. My computer up and died, and my roommates up and left. One of them did upgrade his PC this semester, so I assume that he still has his old components somewhere.



UPDATE: Dammitall. :| Got more crap out of the way - wires, videocard and its VGA Cooler thingy. Bulging cap, right at the AGP slot. I wonder if that might also explain the occasional monitor freakouts?

So then, the next question: Will a regular Radioshack capacitor tide the thing over for another week? If so, how exact must it be? Radioshack has an incredibly limited selection. The closest they appear to have is 2200µF.
 
Is there an electronics supply near you?

I'm trying to remember about caps and it seems that the voltage rating was quite important too. I know nearly nothing about electronic components, that's why I'd search out an electronics supply.
 
I know that if the voltage rating is lower than it needs to be, then bad things can happen. I think that things like ESR rating and uF rating can affect timings or who knows what.

I just need something that'll work for a week.
Heading to the yellow pages for electronics suppliers in the area.

I did find one place. Is Falconer Electronics a parts distributor? I've also lost confidence in Yellowpages.com. Some of their matches were for places over 300 miles away.
 
I've been using Yahoo. Go to Local, fill in City and State. I got what looks like some good results typing "Electronic Components" in the Search for: box using Erie, PA.

The ones at the top are always ads.
 
I tried every electronics place within 20 miles. I also tried Google's business search tool. One number was disconnected, and the new number lead to some law firm. The rest are all closed for the weekend. Looks like I don't have many other options, but to wait until Monday. If I do that, there's a guy in an office on campus who has the equivalent of a well-stocked Radio Shack in his workshop. I guess he's there to serve the campus electronics engineers' needs.
If only this problem could have come maybe 12 hours sooner, I could have figured out a solution before the non-retail world closes for the weekend. For weekend electronics projects, Radio Shack is the only game in town.


If I were to use something from Radio Shack for only one week, what's the worst that'll happen? Is my computer at risk of damage, or would the capacitor simply die a lonely death?
I see mixed responses elsewhere online. Some people say "No, don't use Radio Shack capacitors", others say that they've recapped their boards with Radio Shack capacitors with no ill effects. I understand that these caps might not last as long as a cap rated for this kind of application, but I only need it to work for one week. Then I'll be going home, I'll have time to get the right parts, or else just upgrade my PC.


Maybe this is an omen. My less-than-a-year-old car battery is dead too, after spending only 2 weeks unused.
 
If you have one bad, they prob are all bad or going that way.
You replace all or none.
Some leak UNDERNEATH where you cant see it.
I have been down this road many times.
Your chance of finding correct caps locally is slim and none.
FWIW: dont try to resolder new caps into board unless you are really good with low watt gun.
Just pull them off and solder new ones to lead stubs - it will look kinda ugly, but you wont screw up board
You can pay a service $50 to redo caps, but at that price, its time to upgrade
http://motherboardrepair.com/mother_board_repair.do
When you can get AMD san diego's for $99 at newegg and a new mobo for it for $52 - why waste any time at all on a boat anchor/
 
I only need it to work for one more week!
Longevity is not a concern here. It's slated to be replaced with a Core2Duo-based upgrade after finals are done.🙂

So yes, they may all go bad soon (I've had bad caps on two other motherboards already). It'll be sold as such over winter break - motherboard-time-bomb.

And I am good with soldering. I've done hand soldering of SMD components already.

Why waste time on a boat anchor? Getting my data requires that the drives be hooked up properly. The drives are in RAID 5, and need a controller card. My controller card needs a computer. My computer needs a capacitor. 😉
 
Wow, didn't know they were that cheap. Last time I looked into a replacement there were hardly any of them available, and they were going for around $70. Still, I have in mind a better replacement.😀
I'm hoping that's a decent one. It's going to be a budget upgrade here. Shalst I start another "Rate my rig" thread? Or just go with what he recommended? I'm past my overclocking phase in life. Now I just want it to work.

I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade, and this is a really really good one.
 
Back to the original updated question - chances are that you COULD be okay with the uF spec being off but my gut feeling says it won't work. ASSUMING all of the other caps are good, you MIGHT be okay. Usually less-complex devices have a much higher tolerance for out-of-spec caps but with mobo's and cpu's this isn't the case. They have very little tolerances in most cases so this is why I would think it probably wouldn't work. It's worth a try though, I don't think you'll damage anything as long as you install the new cap correctly. And as Bozo Galora mentioned, in no way try to solder this straight to your mobo unless you REALLY REALLY know what you're doing.
 
I went ahead and tried a Radio Shack capacitor. The closest they had was a 2200uF 35V axial cap. Damn thing was huge. It at least gave me a POST code this time, cycling through 8(), then 8F, then FF, then 00. Just FYI, the 8() means there was an 8, then no digit, some funky screwed up POST code apparently. But still no boot. The card also reported now "Reset fail". I removed the new POS and tried holding the old capacitor back in its original place. Same as before - Reset and Clk still passed, but not POST. I figure I'll just wait until Monday and check with that one guy who's got the room full of electronics. He might have a suitable replacement.
If not, well, then I live with my laptop until I go home and get my upgrades. It's at least hooked up to my monitor and keyboard now, so it's at least like having my normal PC, only with seriously stripped down features and performance.

And for the record, I have recapped a motherboard already. Some Epox board, think it was an 8RDA+. Got my capacitor kit from Badcaps.net, got rid of the bulging and at-risk caps, and soldered the new ones in. It booted just fine.
 
I can't believe it took a page and a half of thread for you to get a link to badcaps. I guess I'll have to check in at gen hard more often.

.bh,
 
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