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Hard drives not spinning - system appears nearly dead

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Hard drives not spinning - system appears nearly dead

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Everything was fine.
I'm running Linux Ubuntu 8.10
motherboard = gigabyte GA-M61SNE-S2
graphics card = gforce 7200GS

So heres what happens...
When I start the pc the power light comes on on the front panel. And the drive light comes on as I push the power button but then goes out and never flashes. Cooling fans work. DVD tray opens. Digital temperature readout works.

At no time is there anything on the monitor. It is black. But when I turn the monitor on I do see the monitors splash screen before it goes blank.

I have 2 hard drives ( 1 IDE and 1 SATA) but I do not hear hard drives running although I do have 5 volts and 12 volts coming out of the plugs.

I disconnected both hard drives and hooked up an old 20 gig drive that has windows xp on it. Nothing is differant except that the hard drive light on the front panel is lit solid.

Next I tried this...
I can hear the drives activate when I turn the computer on. Its a sound like something "kicking in". But the disks are not spinning. I disconnected the ribbon cable from the IDE drive and when I start the pc the drive can then be heard spinning. When I reconnect the ribbon cable the drive does not spin. On the SATA drive I am not sure if it is spinning or just really quiet when I disconnect the other SATA cable.

So is the motherboard bad? I hope not.

Help!!

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While I'm waiting for a response I'll add a couple of comments.

I think the problem was a bad power supply. But I would like some of you's to confirm my suspicions.

I forgot to mention that my reset button had lost is functionality.

While I was unhooking stuff and rehooking stuff, trying to isolate the problem, my power supply suddenly died. No voltage and the fan in the supply stopped working.

Now, I and assuming that this was the problem all along... power supply failing. Or was it likely something else and the power supply just died by coincidence?

Would a failing power supply cause the symptoms listed above? What really stumps me is that the hard drives had voltage but did not work with the ribbon cables connected and did work with the ribbon cables disconnected.
Is this the symptom of a failing power supply.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to sofalinux

You should not have been unplugging and plugging live power to your parts. That's a good way to ruin them.

It was likely either motherboard or PSU.

Your hard drives were just behaving properly.

The presence of voltage does not mean a PSU is functioning correctly.

------------------------------ My Guide to choosing parts
A big list of recommended parts
Troubleshooting Guide w/links
Reply to Proximon

I was not unplugging stuff while it was turned on.
I don't understand your statement "Your hard drives were just behaving properly".

Reply to sofalinux

sofalinux wrote :

While I was unhooking stuff and rehooking stuff, trying to isolate the problem, my power supply suddenly died. No voltage and the fan in the supply stopped working.

For your PSU to suddenly die it had to be on. It should always be disconnected from the AC current when working on your PC.

Your hard drives would be waiting for a signal from the MB to power up. If not connected to the MB, then they might power up on their own.

------------------------------ My Guide to choosing parts
A big list of recommended parts
Troubleshooting Guide w/links
Reply to Proximon

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