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Computer shut off and won't turn on. Motherboard or PSU?

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Destruya

Junior Member
I only moved my computer from one case to another. I like to take my time connecting the cooler and wires to the motherboard to make sure I get it right (did not remove the CPU).

Computer turned on fine, and I ran Prime95 for maybe 15 minutes then it abruptly shut down. I thought the that the heat had turned it off for some reason when I reset the bios, but even waiting a while it wouldn't turn on.

My thoughts are that the motherboard had died (only 7 months old), I did open up the PSU to clean out the dust when changing cases but didn't touch any components. I still get voltage from the power supply and at best can get the fans to flicker for 1/4 of a second but that's the closest to turning on I can get it. I tried disconnecting every unnecessary part, but still nothing.

Any ideas on which part might be the culprit or what exactly made it die?
Thanks in advance.
 
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If you reomoved the cover from the PSU to clean it my first idea would be to take it back out and remove the cover again and have a good look/smell inside. See if anything looks melted/broken/out of place or see if you have dropped a screw in there and report back.
 
My wife's CPU heatsink stopped making good contact a couple months ago (stupid Intel push pins, one failed) and caused the system to shut down. Maybe during the move something came loose and it shuts down due to heat.
 
dfuze said:
My wife's CPU heatsink stopped making good contact a couple months ago (stupid Intel push pins, one failed) and caused the system to shut down. Maybe during the move something came loose and it shuts down due to heat.
Click to expand...

I think it would run for more than 1/4 second if this was the case but it might be an easy thing to check.
 
Opened up the PSU and it looked fine, no broken wires or caps or anything. Same thing with the motherboard. I even reseated the cooler in case it was too tight or something. Still get that fan flicker at best. Most likely I will RMA the motherboard and see if a new one solves the problem.
 
stupid question, but did you ever check to make sure your power button was fully engaging? I ask because at my work, we've had a slew of cases where the button that depresses the switch was getting 'stuck' and the machines would either not fully turn on, or would go into restart loops.
 
The switch flips just like the day I got it, but I can't tell if there's anything wrong with the inside of that switch.
 
Destruya said:
The switch flips just like the day I got it, but I can't tell if there's anything wrong with the inside of that switch.
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the switch on the back? does it not have a push button power on the front? the issue we ran into was that the front bezel of the case (decorative outer front) was actually getting stuck offset from the button mechanism that was wired to the mb. so the round bit of plastic with no wires attached was hitting the actual switch under the front bezel and because that switch was tilted sideways or something, it was either sticking, or not getting pressed right.

it's a long shot, but I thought I'd toss it out there.
 
I found another old 775 board I had laying around and it powered on so I'm sure that it must be the motherboard. I went through and reattached everything and still nothing, pretty sure the board is just dead, but I've got class soon so I can experiment more later. Thanks for all the help again everyone!
 
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