PSU, mobo, or video card?

[IThinkImAEngineer]

Hi All,

I've had my system for just over a year now and this is the first time I've had any sort of problems with it...

While I was loading up a game the other night and suddenly my computer just shutdown. There were no sparks, no smoke, no signs the computer was gonna die on the monitor either (the screen was still clear and focused). I waited a few minutes and pushed the power button again, the fans whirled up for about a second then the system died again. I tried once more and nothing happened, the LED on the motherboard wasn't even lit up.

So, thinking that I might have overloaded the psu, i started unplugging some drives and trying to turn it on again, still nothing, not even the mobo led. So finally I remove the video card and flip the switch on the psu, and the mobo led lights up and the fans turn on. So I turn it off, put the video card back in (making sure its in all the way), flip the switch, and once again nothing.

I should be able to borrow a friends video card tomorrow, and I would try changing the psu, but its a Shuttle (now out of warranty), and it has proprietary motherboard plugs.

What do you all think is the problem?

Thanks for you help-

 

[AlgaeEater]

Complete failure to turn on for me in the past has been either:

1) Dead motherboard
2) Damaged Ram


The video card should be the easiest thing to test, since you can just stick it on another computer. If it turns on, you're set.

Power supplies, unless generic, rarely get destroyed in a lifetime. I have never had a power supply die on me in the last 5 years, save one really generic 200W power supply I had used from god knows when. I'm not saying it may not be the problem, but when a power supply dies, it dies completely. The fact that you got the mobo to power up lights and the fan on means it's probably not the PSU.

 

[IThinkImAEngineer]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I borrowed another video card and put it in my system, but when I turned on the power supply, all of the system fans turned on (except for the psu itself) and would not stop. I then pushed the power button on the case and the fans finally slowed down and the system booted up just fine (got into windows, tested the RAM, ran a few apps).

BUT, when I shut down the system, windows shut down, but the system fans kicked back up to full speed and would not turn of again. Is this a whole new different problem??

Thanks again-