No POST, but otherwise seems fine. Seeking another opinion.

[sn8ke]

Hi guys.

So my trusty system that I do most of my audio related work on stopped booting the other day.
It's a fairly old AM2 dual core system (ASUS board with Award BIOS) I built in 2007, but it's been rock solid for what I use it for.

Summary:

It rained for about a week straight last month with brown outs. I hadn't turned the system on in probably a couple weeks since I'd been busy elsewhere. When I did attempt to, it would not turn on with the power button. I'd had that issue before, and it seemed "loose" like if I were to press it hard then it would power on. This time however it would not. Opened it up and reseated a few things, and when I was on the floor plugging the power cable back in, I heard an odd hissing sound coming from the PSU. Obviously not a good sign... probably a capacitor issue.

So I've bought a new Antec 450w PSU (original was 380w Ultra).

It now starts up strong as soon as I press the power button, and the 120mm exhaust fan spins much stronger than I remember. The CPU fan spins nice too, the green light on the motherboard is on like normal, and my bluray drive seemed to work normally (I disconnected my HDDs due to psu issue). However, I got no video.

Here's what I've done:

Reset CMOS.
Removed video card and plugged into onboard: same.
Removed everything one by one and tried again: same thing.
Tried without RAM and different RAM combinations: same.
Ripped a PC speaker out of one of my other systems and stuck it in: no beeps.
Put in a PCI POST diagnostics card: Tells me "Signal error: check PCU or Power box", guessing this is Engrish for CPU or power supply. PSU is brand new so not likely... CPU, maybe but that's pretty rare I think (never OC'd or stressed).

The POST card has a voltage test function that seems ok, and the peripherals seem to be powered normally as well. It tells me:
+3V: 3.3V
+5V: 4.9V
+12V: 11.9V
"code 00 unknown code" and "RESET invalid, IRDY valid, FRAME invalid".

RESET is related to powering on
FRAME refers to the PCI Bus FRAME hmm.
IRDY = device ready


Since it's an older system I've got no other compatible parts available to switch/test with.
Of course, my thoughts were the storms/PSU ate the motherboard. But I've not encountered one before that acted like this. Usually they just do nothing.

So I'm seeking more opinions before I have to drop cash on a new system as I'd really like to revive this if possible.

Thanks for any ideas or help!

 

[Ketchup]

Good testing so far. You might want to make sure the cpu fan is still connected to the cpu fan power connector. The other fans you mentioned being louder - if they are connected to the board, they could point to the pwm control on the board no longer working, which would point to a board issue.

 

[sn8ke]

Good testing so far. You might want to make sure the cpu fan is still connected to the cpu fan power connector. The other fans you mentioned being louder - if they are connected to the board, they could point to the pwm control on the board no longer working, which would point to a board issue.

CPU fan is connected to the board. The 120mm that seems more powerful is the case exhaust fan in the back, connected to a 4 pin molex direct into PSU. I thought maybe it seemed "stronger" because my other PSU was on its way out and not spinning it at full RPM. Hmm, I hadn't considered PWM issues. Thanks for another idea to check into. Those are the only fans aside from the PSU fan (cube case micro ATX build).

One thing I did notice about the new Antec PSU is the 20+4 connector has an empty pin hole whereas my original one did not. Is that normal for some PSU? Never really looked into that before.

Also worth mentioning is my case has a temperature readout on the front, and it's lit up blue like normal but there are no temperature readings even though the sensors are in the case. Always worked fine before.

 

[Iron Woode]

what motherboard is it?

considering it's age, I would strongly suggest inspecting the caps.

might be time to upgrade your system to something more recent. I retired my AM2 game server last year and I now run an AM3 setup with solid caps. It's faster and more reliable.

 

[sn8ke]

what motherboard is it?

considering it's age, I would strongly suggest inspecting the caps.

might be time to upgrade your system to something more recent. I retired my AM2 game server last year and I now run an AM3 setup with solid caps. It's faster and more reliable.

Thanks for the interest.
It's an ASUS M2NBPVM CSM. I didn't list other specs in my post as the issue seemed generic.
I did have a look at the capacitors when I had the motherboard out of the case, but I didn't notice anything wrong. At least not to the naked eye. Is there a common culprit to look at closer maybe?

And true, I know an upgrade would probably be in order by now, but the system has thousands worth of software installed that I use and I'm dreading the issues with licenses/reinstalling due to new hardware IDs (DRM sucks). Hence me trying to salvage this, especially since it's never had any performance issues, or issues aside from this.

 

[Burpo]

Try reseating the CPU, making sure it is down in the socket fully.

 

[sn8ke]

Try reseating the CPU, making sure it is down in the socket fully.

Definitely was on my "last resort" list (which is what I'm on now). Need to pick up some thermal paste though. Thanks for the reminder. Gonna need it regardless in the case of a new build.