Dead PC, advice needed

darrenjg

Distinguished
Mar 17, 2004
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Hi, I hope someone can maybe give me some advice regarding
the below problem, as I think my dads psu may be dead.

He told me when he turned his PC on, his screen remained blank but the PC started to boot up, and asked if I had a spare graphics card to use to see if that was the problem.

I turned the power off on the back of the PC and swapped graphics cards, however, when I turned the power back on on the back of the PC the CPU fan began to spin and a faint clicking sound could be heard from the PSU.

The power light on the front of the PC was flickering and the soft power button on the front had no effect. There was nothing to indicate that the PC was booting up or any drive access at all.

After questioning him further he said that the soft power button on the front of the case did seem to turn the PC on and off earlier in the day, however, I found that he was not sure if the PC had been atempting to boot earlier as it may have just been the sound of the fan he had heard.

He had a 250wat psu, powering a P4 (of some kind) two optical drives and one hard drive, and a radeon gfx card (of some kind). This does seem a rather weak power supply for that amount of hardware.

I have tried turning the PC on with the optical drives disconnected, but it simply acts the same as above, with the cpu fan gently spinning and the power light flickering.

Am I right in thinking his psu has gone, or could there be other possible explanations?

It does seem slightly odd that the front power button did seem to work until I had turned the PC on and off at the back. Could the act of turning it off and on have been enough to kill a dying psu?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Darren
 

arnold873

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Feb 18, 2005
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18,980
go to comp usa and buy a new psu
and swap the two out
then package up the dead psu and return it to
comp usa for a refund

;)

your all just a bunch of slaves
how long you gonna let them push you around
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Try unhooking the hard drive.

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G

Guest

Guest
yeah, that could be the 'ole HDD click of doom. Headr that a few times myself... :frown:

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arnold873

Distinguished
Feb 18, 2005
757
0
18,980
yeah those idiots don`t ever check and if they did
they would see a psu
what do they know

your all just a bunch of slaves
how long you gonna let them push you around