PSU, CPU fan or maybe something else?

[alphamini86]

I was doing some gaming yesterday and my computer shut off by itself. After that, it wouldn't come on again. Pressing the power button did nothing. It seemed to me to be a cut and dry PSU issue. I did some googling and found this on Corsair's site:

Q » My machine doesn’t start up when I hit the power button
A » Disconnect everything from your PSU except for one single fan that should be connected directly to one of the molex connectors. Then, get a small piece of wire, paper clip, or suitable object and short the green pin and a black pin on the 24-pin connector on the power supply. The voltage present is a very low signaling voltage so no worries of being shocked. Your PSU should then power the fan you have connected to it. If this is the case, your PSU is fine and you should consider other causes of the problem you’re having.

I tried that and it actually spun up, but when I reattached everything, it still wouldn't boot.

I swapped in a different PSU, but the new one didn't have a PCIE plug so I had to unplug my video card. After I did that, everything powered on but obviously there was no video.

One other weird thing I noticed was that with the original PSU installed, about one out of every five times, it would still power on but the CPU fan seemed to be stuttering or pulsating for lack of a better word. When I put in the secondary PSU, one out of the three times I booted it up, the CPU fan did the same thing.

I'm still leaning towards a PSU, but any input would be greatly appreciated before I drop money on a good PSU. Thanks.


Specs:

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
FSP Group SAGA+ 400R 400W ATX12V Power Supply
4GB of DDR2 RAM
Zalman CNPS9500 AT CPU fan
DVD burner

Running Windows 7 x64

 

[mfenn]

It could definitely be the PSU. The "manual power on' trick can only confirm that a PSU is dead. It cannot prove that a PSU is working.

Your GPU should have come with some Molex to PCIe power adapters that you can use to get power from your other PSU. If you don't have them, they are readily available from pretty much any place that sells hardware.

 

[zagood]

It could definitely be the PSU. The "manual power on' trick can only confirm that a PSU is dead. It cannot prove that a PSU is working.

Your GPU should have come with some Molex to PCIe power adapters that you can use to get power from your other PSU. If you don't have them, they are readily available from pretty much any place that sells hardware.

:thumbsup: