LED's flash once - issue?

I kinda have a n00b question ... that I can't seem to figure out.

My computer has been running fine for the past year or so - up until the weekend. I came home with it turned off... and when I tried turning it on - the LED's flash once quickly ... and the fans power on for a brief moment ... but the computer does not actually turn on.

I ran a few searches... here and google - and came found a similar issue:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/ [...] 921AAQsZS9

I tried re-seating the memory, CPU, and video card... to no help. I even went out and purchased a new heatsink and fan... to make sure it was flushed properly onto my motherboard ... and that still didn't help.

I'm running out of options. Does anyone have any suggestions?

If its of any help - I have the following setup:

CPU: Core 2 Duo - E6400
Board: ASUS P5VD2-X (kinda ghetto, I know)
GPU: EVGA GeForce 7600GT

Any help would be much appreciated - I financially unable to replace my old setup.

Thanks for the reply - the only reason I wasn't thinking the PSU ... is because the ASUS light turns on when I plug it in and turn on the PSU power switch.

I'll give it a shot later tonight after work, thanks. If it is the issue ... I wish I had a better one laying around. My current PSU is an old 350W without any SATA power connectors.

I have to agree, those symptoms sound like a PSU problem. For the motherboard to turn on, you need a signal from the PSU called Power Good (may also be know as Power OK). It appears that it starts out good, but as the motherboard powers up one or more of the rails drops out of spec and the Power Good signal is removed.

PSU's age. They don't really need an easily identifiable reason to fail. I just replaced an Antec TP11 550W 12VEPS PSU that went and it was still under warranty. This power supply went about a month after my boys PSU went after a brown out. I didn't know that I didn't have a surge protector on their computer, and after the power came back on their computer wouldn't turn on. My computer was fine as I have a UPS so I wasn't affected. Then a month later mine started to act up when I was at work. I work overseas, so I had my wife shut it off until I got home. When I went to power it up, nothing. I then removed the cord at the back and shut the switch off on the supply. I plugged the cord back it and switched the PSU switch back on and snap, crackle, pop and that was it. I got a new PC P&C Sllencer 750 Quad (Blue) and fortunately the catastrophic failure of the PSU didn't take any of my hardware with it.

Get yourself a good reputable branded PSU like PC P&C, Corsair or Enermax, etc. Also give your system a little more headroom than 350W. I would say at the very least 550W with a decent amount of current on the 12V rail(s) say in the neighborhood of 50A - 60A. This will be plenty for your system, and give you some room to grow. The one thing about PSU's is if you buy a good one with plenty of power, there is no reason why it can't be taken along with a new system.

Hopefully you'll get lucky and all your hardware survived the failure.

One last thing it could possibly be is a fault case switch. I have never seen on personally, but I have heard of it happening.

Oh I thought in your second post you said you had a 350W supply. 500W should have been enough to supply your system, but that doesn't mean that it can't fail even though it was more than enough to supply your system.

Also, I am not suggesting you get a UPS. They are great for protecting your investment, but really a personal choice. As for being useless for a black/brown out, the idea isn't to keep your system on idefinitely, but to give you long enough to save whatever your doing and shutdown properly. In fact my UPS once it gets down to 5 minutes of battery time left, puts my computer into Hibernate or you can change the software to do a full shutdown.

Wow, I compared Fry's prices that you linked to the place I shop (Canada)

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Produ [...] fault.aspx

those definitely are a lot higher than what we are paying. The Canadian dollar and the US dollar are pretty much on par now. If you are in the US, it seems that NewEgg is not only reputable, but cheap as well. Actually NewEgg is supposed to be coming to Canada soon, so it will be interesting to see how they compare to Memory Express.

can you give us a better shot of those caps..