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Computer powers up but wont POST

kag

kag

Golden Member
This is about the third time my computer is doing this to me. It happens every few months (last time was in January). I come back at the computer and my screens are shut down (just like when Windows shuts them after xx minutes) and the computer appears to be frozen. I reset the computer and nada.

There is power, because all the LEDs are flashing, the CD drives have power too because they are spinning and their LEDs are flashing, but it does not even get to the point where the screens light up.

Last time, when I opened my case to try to find something wrong, I realised that the fan on my video card (Radeon 9800Pro) had stopped spinning. So I ordered a new one, so it should not be the case this time.

Actually I remember last time, I stripped everything from my computer... unplugged the CD drives, the sound card, the modem, the hard drives. With just the RAM and the CPU, it wouldn't boot up, even with a known-to-be-working PCI card instead of my Radeon. I didn't know what else to do so I just put everything back in place and went to bed after a last unsuccessful try. The following day, I came home and when I tried to power up the computer, everything was working again.

I think I have no speaker in my computer case so I don't know if it's beeping or something. I don't have diagnostic LEDs on my Asus A7N8X-X board, like I did on my previous MSI board.

The specs are:
Asus A7N8X-X
OCZ PC2700 CAS2 RAM (very high quality RAM)
AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Sapphire Radeon 9800Pro 128MB
Antec SLK3700 case with a 350W Antec PS
the rest is not really important, as they are all unplugged.

Do you have any clues, or have you heard reccurent problems about those components? I'm really clueless 🙁

Fortunately, I managed ot install X-Windows and Firefox on my BSD server, so this is a small victory to me (I'm not very good with *nix). I'm in a new city and I don't know anyone who could lend me some spare parts to test... and my roommate has a older computer with no compatible parts.
 
Could be a lot of things:

Could be a weak CMOS battery. They cost $2 at Office Depot or Radio Shack so if you haven't got a digital multimeter, just replace it. What the hell.

Could be the mobo is dying (usually a bad capacitor).

Could be a weak, bad, faulty PSU.

Could be a very good quality PSU that doesn't like the line voltage. Good quality ($50+) PSUs have line voltage detection. If the PSU sees conditions that would cause unstable voltage regulation, it won't fully power up. Could be your line voltage in the house is a little low sometimes. Once you POST it's fine though. A good quality UPS battery backup will solve that (one that does line conditioning).

Antec's are good PSUs, but 350 is a little light and assume this is NOT a True Power model? If it's just a plain jane Antec 350 it's better than your average PSU, but it's still a budget CPU. Fine for a regular desktop but not for a gaming system.

Consider an Antec True Power 380 or 430.

Next time this happens, turn off the kill switch on the back of the PSU for 1 minute (gives all the capacitors time to discharge) and then turn it back on and see if it fires up. Might be a workaround.

Hope this helps...
 
Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
Could be a lot of things:

Could be a weak CMOS battery. They cost $2 at Office Depot or Radio Shack so if you haven't got a digital multimeter, just replace it. What the hell.

Could be the mobo is dying (usually a bad capacitor).

Could be a weak, bad, faulty PSU.

Could be a very good quality PSU that doesn't like the line voltage. Good quality ($50+) PSUs have line voltage detection. If the PSU sees conditions that would cause unstable voltage regulation, it won't fully power up. Could be your line voltage in the house is a little low sometimes. Once you POST it's fine though. A good quality UPS battery backup will solve that (one that does line conditioning).

Antec's are good PSUs, but 350 is a little light and assume this is NOT a True Power model? If it's just a plain jane Antec 350 it's better than your average PSU, but it's still a budget CPU. Fine for a regular desktop but not for a gaming system.

Consider an Antec True Power 380 or 430.

Next time this happens, turn off the kill switch on the back of the PSU for 1 minute (gives all the capacitors time to discharge) and then turn it back on and see if it fires up. Might be a workaround.

Hope this helps...
Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better myself

 
Thanks for the recommendation. Tomorrow I'll stop at the store to buy a new battery, that will be a start. I don't believe it's a bad line because I forgot to mention that I'm newly connected to a UPS - a small one, but still a UPS. And the first time this problem happened, it was in my hometown, about 715km away, so I'm on a completely different power line company. Could be the power supply, you are right, it's not a True Power.

Do you think it could be something else than the PS or the mobo? Maybe I could borrow a PS from a friend at work. If that woudlnt fix the problem, I could assume then that the problem is the mobo. I don't think a broken CPU would react like that???
 
Sounds like a PSU issue. I had the same problem; no POST but fans would be running and LEDs would be on. I would just hit the reset button and it would be fine for a few days then do the same. After a few months of doing that, the "hibernation state" would happen more frequently. Finally it got to the point where it would try to post and then go back into that state. I took wild educated guess and bought a new PSU for it. Luckily that solved my issue. Sorry for the long story, just thought I'd share my experience. Good luck.
 
I just thought about something. It has happened a few times (maybe 2-3 times top) that I would come back home and the computer had rebooted itself while I was away.

Do you think it could be related, would a low CMOS battery, or a bad PSU do something like that?

I'm gonna pick up a new battery during my lunch time and if that doesn't solve the problem, I'll pick up a new PS I guess, maybe it's the same as iTWoRxbRo's problem.
 
Reboot could be related. Still hard to say if it's mobo or PSU, but connecting another known good PSU will eliminate that possibility (hopefully the one you borrow is a decent one).

I've seen this happen with a mobo with a bad capacitor. It'll just get worse and worse and one day it won't POST at all.
 
Hmm this is even weirder. I replaced the battery with a new one. It still doesn't work, but it goes a step further before stopping. Now I see the floppy disk kind of initializing (the LED goes on, and I hear the head moving). It didn't go that far before.
 
Well FlyingPenguin, I must bow to you. I took everything appart, and I found out that there was a bent capacitor on the upper right corner of the board. That capacitor was bend when my DVD-Rom was inserted in its position (from waht I could see). Fortunately, I believe my Asus board came with a 3-year warranty so I'm get a RMA.
 
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