Computer Not Starting

[Aleatoire]

Hey there. I didn't know where to post this but I'm sure there is someone here that can help, and my system is homebuilt.

I have a bit of a problem. Last night I was in the middle of a disk defrag when my computer froze on me. I waited for a while to see if it would un-freeze but it didn't, so I turned it off with the power button. The display on my monitor turned off but the fans and the lights on the outside of the case remained on, instead of turning off straight away. I waited a minute to see if it was just being slow but nothing turned off, so I turned it off at the power supply.

Now when I try to turn it back on nothing responds. No fans work, not even for a second. But the light on my motherboard is on, which, according to the manual indicates that the motherboard is receiving power and is on standby.

I really can't work out what has happened.
If the light on the motherboard is on then the PSU must still be working (I tried another PSU and it didn't work anyway). I have tried different power switches to see if my switch was broken and none work. I haven't yet taken everything out of my computer because it's near impossible to get my GTX 260 GPU out of the PCI-E slot without taking the entire motherboard out of the computer, but I don't think it's a hardware issue because everything was working fine until I turned the system off.

Any help would be great. I think maybe my motherboard is fried, but if it were, would the standby light still be on?

If you need it:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93ghz
4GB 1066mhz
WD 1TB HDD
Geforce GTX 260
Turtlebeach 5.1 Sound Card
Asus P5Q-SE2 Mobo
Vantec Ion2 520w PSU

Sorry for the long post!

 

[Twoboxer]

First of all, you *do* have a hardware issue lol. Now let's try to find out where.

Lights on the mobo do not mean the psu is working. They only mean it isn't totally dead. However, if you tried a second psu that was *known* to be working, then we can eliminate psu.

Please tell us what make/model the second psu is.

What do you mean by "I tried different power switches"? Is this PC inside a normal case?

If its not the psu, and if you did nothing else physically to the PC recently, then its quite likely the mobo.

 

[Aleatoire]

Ok then =)

Umm, Don't know what the second PSU was sorry because I was at a friends house when I tried it. It was a 500w PSU though with about 30A on 12v rail. It works because I took it from my friends computer.

With the power switches I mean the button on the front of the case that you press to turn on the computer. I hooked up and tried ones that I knew worked in case the wire in my one was broken.

I recently added the GTX 260 (in fact only a couple of hours before) but it was working fine for the few hours it was running. I suppose it could be that, but it's annoyingly hard to take out of the computer so I haven't tried that yet. I has hoping that there might be some obvious thing that i was doing wrong.

 

[Aleatoire]

Edit:
33A on the 12V rail.

 

[Aleatoire]

Just took out the GTX 260 GPU. No change, still nothing.

 

[jsc]

Time to resort to serious troubleshooting:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems

 

[Aleatoire]

Already done everything that that article says. Still no change =(

 

[donpacific2k]

So you reset the CMOS? At this point it sounds like a bad motherboard or CPU. Probably the motherboard (I've only had one CPU get flaky even with overclocking, whereas I've had at least 3 motherboards die in the last 10 years)

 

[Aleatoire]

Took the computer into a repair shop. It would seem that my power supply failed and fried my motherboard.

Lucky me.
At least now I know what the problem is so I can fix it. To bad I don't get warranty on the motherboard.

Ah well, thanks for the help everyone!