Went away for holiday, now computer won't power on

ajn007

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Aug 7, 2013
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Hi.

I have a desktop computer I built myself over a year and a half ago. I went away on vacation for 10 days and before I left I do what I always do: power all my electronics down and unplug the power strips from the outlets. When I got home the other day, I plugged everything in and went to start my PC and nothing happened. I waited a few hours, tried again, nothing happened. I did some research and found something I had read from motherboard manufacturers: removing all components from the motherboard, taking out the battery, waiting a few minutes, replace memory and video card and try to start again. Did that. Still nothing.

So I decided to try a new power supply. New power supply came, I tried again, nothing, Well, not exactly nothing. There's a power button on the board itself and it illuminates. When I use that (instead of the power button on the case) the fans will power for less than a second (literally) before it goes dead. Repeated presses do nothing, but if I turn off the power supply then back on, it will do the same less than a second power thing. I tried completely disassembling the computer and putting it back together, trying out various configurations to try to isolate a problem component. No dice at all.

So my thought now is that it may be the motherboard. But I'm also concerned it might be the CPU. Does anyone have any idea what could have happened to my computer? I mean, it was off and unplugged for 10 days and before that it worked perfectly fine. Do components just go bad like that? It makes no sense to me!

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
if you don't get any beeps on boot sequence I am sorry but seems like some serious mobo/cpu problem(most likely mobo). Check your warranty they are often for 2 years you may still get replacement.
cpus rarely just die unless fried or abused. If the motherboard buttons illuminate good chance it still works. did u try one stick of ram? no gpu? or different ram/gpu? It could be the board but only way to be sure if test with wat u know is working ram/gpu/cpu etc. Obviously testing or going to purchase a test stick of ram or cheap gpu is better than a board or cpu.

Did u make sure everything was plugged in correctly? u said u tried many different configurations, mention a few. Did u try to power on with bare essentials as cpu/psu/ram? nothing else if u have built in gpu and if not use ur gpu.

I have no idea wat would cause it to just die after u unplugged it other than some form of short or electrical shock.

Whats ur setup? as going out and purchasing the lowest end matching socket cpu or board isnt terribly expensive but who wants to buy them just to test lol
 

cypeq

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Nov 26, 2009
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if you don't get any beeps on boot sequence I am sorry but seems like some serious mobo/cpu problem(most likely mobo). Check your warranty they are often for 2 years you may still get replacement.
 
Solution

ajn007

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Aug 7, 2013
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Thanks everyone. Here's the latest.

I tried rotating through the memory sticks, no dice. I had read somewhere that if there's a faulty CPU cooling fan the mobo won't boot up. So I tried the stock one (I have a Zalman installed) and nothing doing. So I'm betting on the mobo. I checked and the mobo has a three year warranty, so I filled out an RMA form with MSI and (fingers crossed) in a few short weeks my beloved desktop will be up and running again.

A somewhat related question: With a new motherboard, do I need to do a clean install of my OS (Windows 7), or will I be able to boot up with what I currently have installed? All the other hardware will be the same.
 

ajn007

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Aug 7, 2013
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Got the motherboard back from MSI, installed everything. Used new power supply instead of old one. Turned it on, EXACT same problem. No post. No beep. Must be the CPU, right?
 

ajn007

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Aug 7, 2013
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What are the odds it could be all four sticks of memory? I cycled through them one at a time and still got no boot.

Also, what is the behavior of a motherboard with no CPU or RAM. Will it not even beep or post or anything, just be dead? I assume you need at least a CPU, but even with only that, wouldn't the board at least post and give you a no memory error?

Clearly I am out of my element here. I've been building my own computers for 20+ years and I've never encountered a problem like this. It is beyond frustrating.
 

ajn007

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Aug 7, 2013
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Hi again everyone, thanks for your input. My computer is now up and running, yet I still have no idea what was wrong with it. Here's what I did since the new motherboard and how I got it running again.

I got a new CPU RMA'd from Intel. Installed that and everything else and had the exact same result as before (less than a second power then dead). So I started pulling things out again, even tried a different outlet in the house. Still nothing. So I let it sit as I did more research. It was looking more and more like a power issue, either the PSU or a short somewhere. So I started looking for shorts: everything was fine. I decided to test the voltages coming out of the PSU: Everything was perfectly within tolerances, most were spot on.

WTF? So I plugged the power back in, put in an old video card I had and tried again. It powered up! I was socked. Ok, so I'll now plug in the newer video card (the one originally in it when it died and wouldn't resuscitate). It powered up, then turned off. Then turned back on. Then turned off, cycling like that. So I killed power and put in the old video card, but when I turned it back on it did the power cycling again.

So I pull out one of the two sticks of memory I had in there. It powered on, turned off, then powered on again. At this point I said I'm just going to let it go on doing this to see if it catches at some point, and on the very next power cycled it stayed on and I got to bios!

Turned it off, connected my hard drive, and the OS loaded up. Did a series of power downs and installing memory one stick at a time, no problem. It even worked when I put in the stick of memory that I had pulled out only moments ago when the computer turned on for the first time.

I now have everything plugged in and it is working just fine. I'm tempted to say it was the CPU, but can't really say that for sure. All I know is I have my computer back, though in the back of my mind I know I'll always be expecting it to suddenly stop working.

Thanks again everyone.