Motherboard or Power Supply Failure?

bethruss

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Oct 29, 2011
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Specifics: HP Pavilion a6200n Desktop PC
Manufacturer's motherboard name: ECS MCP61PM-HM
HP/Compaq name: Nettle2-GL8E

I have been having issues lately with this pc... Intermitment blue screens of death all with different issues. Yesterday I was running HP hardware diagnostics program and ran all the system stress test and the computer passed with no failures. This morning the power supply shuts off after being on for just a second. When I unplug the ATX12V1 connector on the motherboard, the power supply stays on. Do I have a bad power supply or do I have a bad motherboard? What other steps can I take to narrow down this failure?

Thanks,
Russ
 

barilenator

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Oct 8, 2011
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You did not specify what size power supply you have,or type of Mobo and CPU/ video/Sound card, the issue here may very well lie with the power supply wattage, at first you had crash issues, and the power supply was over worked at the time, and now it is overloaded and shutting down. Look into your power requirements for your system..
 

bethruss

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Oct 29, 2011
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CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
PSU: Antec BP500u
Video: GeForce 9600 GT
Sound: Integrated Realtek ALC888S
Manufacturer: ECS
Form factor: microATX - 24.4 cm (9.6 inches) x 24.4 cm (9.6 inches)
Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
Memory sockets: 4 x DDR2
Front side bus speeds: 2000MT/s (2.0 GT/s)
Processor socket: AM2
Expansion Slots:
1 PCI Express x16 slot for graphics card
1 PCI Express x1 slots
2 PCI slot

My son says he did not have any problems for a couple of years. Only in the last few months did he start having issues with the power reboots. I turned off the auto reboot after failure so I could capture some of the data off the screen. Errors were random in nature. Went though some log files and found a VPN driver that was causing system shutdowns and removed it. Rebooted. Ran all those HP stress tests and system seemed to be stable. Did some window updates. Turned off the computer and went to bed. This morning, the power supply issue cropped up. I don't think the issues are tied together. Just got lucky enough to occur around the same time... I have one of those cheap power supplier testers and says the power supply is good...but, I don't think those test really load up the PSU... I pulled the graphics card and ran with the onboard video. PSU stayed on for about 3 seconds instead of 1 second. No post code beeps...
 

bethruss

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I used the 761345-77204-4 Antec Digital PSU Power Tester and results show that there is no problem with the power supply. It is looking more like a bad motherboard....
 

bethruss

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Another test result... removed the CPU, power supply stays on. Reintall the CPU, power supply trips off? Bad CPU?

Thanks...any advice greatly appreciated.

Russ
 
You probably didn't replace the thermal paste when you removed the cpu and cooler, but I'm going to ignore that. I hope you are only removing/installing parts with the psu switched off. Remove everything, ram, hdd, graphics card, anything plugged in so you only have the cpu(heatsink and fan), motherboard, and monitor in the integrated (psu too of course). Recheck all connections (should only be 2 from psu: 4 pin cpu and 24pin for mobo, a wire for the cpu fan to mobo, and the power button[and probably other front panel connections]), make sure no wires are touching anything to cause a short and reset cmos.

Then turn it on. If it beeps then put in 1 stick of ram, and try again to turn it on. If it doesn't beep, it's most likely the mobo since you tested the psu and a cpu dying is very rare. You can't really test for sure without another mobo or cpu.

Don't ever take out the cpu, it won't beep or do anything without one. Without the cpu it can't do anything. The psu stays on without a cpu because having it connected to a mobo creates a full circuit, similar to a paperclip test. It turns off when the cpu is in because it can then run the rom on the mobo which is then having something trip the self turn off.