PC Turns On For 10 seconds, then off and repeats.

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Goldeneyedog

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Apr 17, 2013
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Hey guys, bought a PC from some guy on gumtree.

i5-3550 / radeon 6850 / 8gb ram, came with decent 24' monitor, keyboard etc. - Was a good deal.

EXCEPT. Came back and the second I put the computer on the ground the cooler fell off of the motherboard. So I bought an installed a piece of crap cooler just to check everything was working.

Basically what is happening is the PC just turns on for 10 seconds, the CPU fan / PSU fan move and then it shuts off again, about 3 seconds later beginning the whole process again indefinitely.

I've removed the GFX Card, All but 1 Ram stick, SSD and everything but the Power Swtich / CPU cooler on the mobo and it still happens.

I've tried shorting the CMOS with foil as for some reason it didn't have a jumper in the box or on mobo. I also tried removing and re-inserting the CMOS battery.

Everything stays the same.

No picture comes from the PC when I plug it in to my monitor / tv, it doesn't even attempt to send a signal, it's as though nothing is plugged in at all. This is true of both the mobo HDMI and GFX Hdmi.

I don't have another PSU to test this with.

Can anyone give me a suggestion as to what this might be and how I could go about fixing it?

The thing is the repair shops in Edinburgh charge £40 to install even a case fan, so I almost feel like paying to get this repaired is going to negate the "bargain" I thought I had. And to pay for someones time and find out it's irreparable anyway makes me want to just buy another CPU/Mobo.


I really don't know what to do with this thing. Hoping it's the mobo as at least that is a cheap replacement.

Note: I have seen similar posts to this but almost all of them didn't say if / how they actually ended up resolving it.
 
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1LiquidPC

1LiquidPC

Splendid
Oct 11, 2014
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What PSU is in the system itself? Also, it's possible something was damaged when the cooler fell off the CPU socket. Another possibility is the mounting of the replacement cooler you installed. Did you use the correct amount of compound? You may want to remove and remount to make sure it's attached correctly. The system could be powering off due to a thermal/overheating situation as well if one corner of the cooler isn't attached properly. Even being down to 1 stick of RAM, have you tried moving it to other slots and try to boot?
 
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Goldeneyedog

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Apr 17, 2013
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I have tried moving the ram yeah.

The cooler actually had the compound pre-applied. In all honesty its kind of difficult to tell with this cooler if it's totally on properly but having removed and reattached it I can say for certain the compound definitely spread properly. Maybe the cooler isn't on properly but I am unsure, it seems to be on properly.

The PSU is a Coolermaster 700w, not sure of the model but it says it's an 80plus (white).

I mean I can't see why it would be the PSU. I was thinking maybe the cooler falling could have damaged something but physically it all seems fine, very strange.
 
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1LiquidPC

1LiquidPC

Splendid
Oct 11, 2014
5,314
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31,590
Given the pre-applied compound, and your double check for even compound spread, its unlikely now its the cooler. I would try the "paperclip" test on the PSU next. This involves unplugging it from everything(board, GPU, drives, ect), and using a paperclip on the 24pin main connector to jump the single green PS_ON wire to an adjacent black ground wire. Once paperclip is in, plug in the PSU and flip main switch on it. The PSU should turn on w/ fan spinning and stay running. If it still powers of by itself, then you have a PSU problem. If it stays on. I'd remove and reinstall everything in your board again, including CPU.
 
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Goldeneyedog

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Apr 17, 2013
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I'll give the paperclip test a try and see what happens, thanks. I kinda hope the PSU is fine since it's fully modular and I'd probably only pay for a semi.

UPDATE: Okay tried that and the PSU is definitely not the problem. When I do this the PSU does not shut off and works absolutely fine.

Further Update: Have tested the PSU with a spare mobo/cpu/ram setup I had from an old pc and the problem doesn't exist when using that, everything works as it should and does not shut off.

Have ended up breadboarding and ran through other mobo tests and everything points to a broken motherboard.

I'm going to take it to a PC Repair shop that doesn't charge for diagnosis and take it from there. Hopefully it's just a simple mobo replacement since it's cheaper than replacing the cpu.

Thanks for the help guys, I'll post back to this thread if the repair shop identifies the problem and/if they find a solution so that anyone else experiencing this might be able to fix this problem should they come across it.
 
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Goldeneyedog

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Apr 17, 2013
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10,530
Hey it's GoldeneyeDog here, didn't bother to sign in as this me on the PC after I got it working.

You'll laugh but it turns out the issue was that the ram wasn't inserted firmly enough.
 
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1LiquidPC

1LiquidPC

Splendid
Oct 11, 2014
5,314
83
31,590
I wouldn't have guess that would be result. I've seen no POST situation and BIOS beeps from no RAM installed, but not a power on/off cycle as you described. However, being partially inserted I suppose could have caused this. Either way, your up and running and learned something. Still, seems strange when you moved 1 stick around to test that it wasn't in firmly even 1 time.
 
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