Could use some assistance - dead PS or mobo?

[mrtwr18]

When I got home last night, I found that my computer was completely dead. I had put it in sleep mode maybe 7 hours before. When I got back, it would not wake back up and I have not been able to get it to boot since. I am sure it must either be the motherboard or the power supply. The only sign of life, when the power supply is on, it sounds like there is an extremely faint high pitched chirp that happes every second or 3/4 of a second.

I wanted to try and swap out the power supply, but do not have a comparable design around that would work with my ASUS A8N-SLI Premium motherboard. I would rather not have to go out and buy a new power supply locally just to test this, considering that the Antec power supply is under warranty yet (I purchased it in Feb 2006).

Do you have any ideas or ways to help me troubleshoot this? I could really use some assistance here. I purchased all the parts online and don't have any comparable components readily available for swapping in and out for testing...

Here's the full system:
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
AMD 3700+
Antec PSU Truepower 550W (TP2-550EPS12V)
Corsair 2 x 1GB TwinX XMS RAM
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 250MB
eVGA 7800 GT 256 MB - CO version
Sony DVD ROM + Samsung DVD burner

Thanks in advance!
Brad

 

[sieistganzfett]

have you unplugged the pc, waited 30 seconds, then replugged it and turned it on to get the chirping each second? does this mean no fans spin up? try unplugging all the internal power cables, then reconnecting them, try reseating things like the video cards, memory, cpu, etc. since its beeping i'm guessing something is only loose, i dont think any hardware is bad, if you cant get any fans to spin up then it could be the power supply.

 

[mrtwr18]

Yep, I did unplug it overnight. That didn't change anything.

Regarding the beeping, I wouldn't really describe it as a beeping. It is more of the sound you hear from the second hand moving on a watch. It is that faint. But, just a little higher pitch.

I am not getting any fans to spin up at all. And no lights anywhere. With those symptoms, would you agree that the power supply is my likely suspect? I haven't tried unplugging everything yet, but will do that if you think it would help diagnose.

Also, until I can get it back up an running, am I able to take my hard drive out of my new computer and simply connect it to my old computer (from ~2001) to get some of the data off it? Not sure if I am asking for more trouble there. If I were to do that, can I just put the new HD in in place of the old HD and have everything boot up properly? Or should I set it up as a slave drive?

 

[sieistganzfett]

under those conditions i agree that the powersupply is your likely suspect. but i would try unplugging everything and reconnecting everything, try even to boot it with just the mobo, jump starting it with a screw driver to short the 2 power pins instead of the front panel. without the video card or memory installed in it. if it still doesnt spin a fan its definitely the power supply. but without doing any of that i would bet its the power supply , but only right after you reconnect the power connectors to the mobo from the power supply, providing there are still no light turning on when you look at the motherboard, after the voltage on the powersupply is set correctly to 115v(if america) and if there is a switch on the power supply, you switched it to "on."

yes you can take your hard drive and connect it to your old computer, providing the drive was IDE and your old pc's motherboard supports a hard drive that is 250GB, or if the drive is 250GB SATA (i think that drive is SATA), you would need to make sure the old pc had sata ports (unlikely) or have a sata card you can install in the old pc then to use the drive. you can't boot of the new PC's 250GB drive in the old pc since windows would blue screen preventing boot up since the chipset, etc is different. So the easiest option would be to set the drive to slave if IDE and put it on the same cable as the HD in your old pc, set it so the drive does not show up as the bootable drive, leaving the original HD in your old pc as the bootable HD. this will just let you get your data in the mean time.

 

[mrtwr18]

Well, I have tried as you suggested. I disconnected and reconnected everywhere possible. No change. Now, I just pulled out the memory and video card, disconnected everything from the mobo, and tried starting by shorting the power switch. No change. There are no fans on and no lights lit anywhere. Time to take it up with Antec...

Thanks for your help!

 

[cubby1223]

Sometimes it's the power supply, sometimes it's only the motherboard that needs replacement.

Unless you have a power supply tester, I would consider it dead. The risk of testing the power supply with a new motherboard is just too great.