Weird Power Issue

[Outl4wXGP]

Hello. This is my first post, though I come here all the time to look up advice from you guys.

Okay. So I was just surfing the internet when my screen went black. The PC looked like it was on, but nothing was happening. So I did a hard reset. Well, now I can't power on my PC at all with everything hooked in. If I unplug my PC, then plug it in, the fans twitch a little bit, but it fails to turn on. There is still a little orange light from the motherboard, like it is receiving power.

When I unplug my graphics card, the PC will post, and seems to boot, but I only have this graphics card, so I can't actually see the screen and if it is running properly or not. From the outside, the PC seems to be running fine.

Because it will post without the GPU, I am thinking it is either the PSU or the GPU at fault.

Here are my sepcs.

I have a Rosewill 80plus Bronze 650 watt PSU
AMD Saphire 6950 GPU
AMD 6100 3.3GHZ CPU
16gigs of GSkill Sniper Sereies RAM
ASRock Extreme 4 AM3+ Motherboard

If you need more info, just ask. Thank you so much for your help.

 

[Outl4wXGP]

Alright. Should I test it first? Or based on the description, you are 90%+ sure its the PSU. I don't want to drop 89$ if its the GPU or another issue. Thank you so much for the fast reply, and I hope this is the problem.

 

[Outl4wXGP]

Also, something I forgot about because I stopped putting my PC to sleep when I got a SSD. My monitor would go black sometimes when I would wake it up. Like the screen would be fine, then it would go black. I would have to power off my screen, then power it back on, or randomly hit alt+ctrl+del and the picture would magically just pop back on. Perhaps this is another sign of the dying PSU? God I hope that's the fix. I don't want to replace this 400$ GPU...

 

[Outl4wXGP]

no over clocking. Haha...I forgot something else. The screen was doing this with this card, and the card I had before it. Forgot to mention. So it was going black on two different cards when waking up from sleep. Its gotta be the PSU right?

I just read somewhere that the PSU shuts off the GPU first when it fails. My PC was running fine when the screen went black. So I am thinking it shut off my GPU because the power was failing. I am going to try the PSU fix. Is there something I could look at to determine if its bad?

Thanks for the help. Any more advice would be appreciated. I get so nervous when things like this happen to my machine. As do all of us, I'm sure. Just some support from other people is enough to calm me down a bit.

 

[Outl4wXGP]

I bought it right when it came out...probably stupid, but I wanted a top of the line machine...Should have learned about the Rosewill. Before I was using my brother's AMD 6750.

 

[starburst]

If your going to get a power supply, don't go buying a psu from a company that is well known. Even the good companies make lemons, although these lemons are usually taken out of production pretty quick. If your going to buy a power supply go for expensive ones by well known companies. Usually companies will have their major models that are known to be good.

 

[Outl4wXGP]

Replaced the PSU with the corsair 750W one. Same problem. It has to be the GPU then, right? I am sending it back, because it is still under warranty.

 

[Outl4wXGP]

Yeah. I am thinking from reading around that I have a dead card, that was probably caused by a bad PSU. I think my PSU fried this card. All the advice on other places said to replace the PSU as well as the GPU. I am in the process of RMAing the card. Thank god it was still under warranty. I am going to ask my brother to ship me his old card in the meantime, to see if it will work in my system. I also came across this which described my problem to a tee:

OMG. I just wrote an entire essay about this issue but lost it since i wasnt logged it.

So, now in very short:

SYMPTOMS:
- Micro-second power on (fans start to spin, LED's flash once) when the Power button is pressed for the first time.
- No response from the power button there after.
- Following powering off the PSU, or disconnecting the PC power cable, the first Power On again show's a micro-second "sign of life."
- Motherboard LED is lit if the PSU is connected and powered.
- Unplugging the power cables on the PCI-E video card then pressing the ON button cause the system to start (fans spin properly, LED's lit).

SOLUTION:
1) Unplug the computer
2) Remove all sticks of RAM
3) Remove graphics card and replace with another one (connect all power cables).
4) Re-insert 1 stick of RAM
5) Boot up
6) Wait for Windows to finish boot (incl. installing new hardware) and is idle:
7) 'Shut Down'
8) Disconnect power cable from the PSU
9) Put the original Graphics card back in (connect all cables) and the rest of the RAM.
10) Start up, viola!

Took me ages to figure this out. I recently upgraded my Video Card from a HD2900XT to a HD6790. I have a 500W Zalman PSU, Q6600 @2.4, on a ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi AP motherboard, 1+1+2 GB RAM, 3x HDD, 500 GB USB external storage, USB flashdrives, USB wireless headset, USB remote control reciever, 2x WiFi attenae, DVD drive, 6 large quiet fans, 2 monitors.... So my first thought was that I was under powered suddenly. But since the new graphics card has been working perfectly till now (installed about 10days ago) I kept looking for some solution other than buying a new PSU and / or Graphics card (again). And this worked for me.

Hope this works for everyone else with this issue too!!

What might be important the the computer went into Sleep Mode, then I powered it off "incorrectly" (i just turned off the power extention the PC is plugged into.) I think this is one of the key elements of getting this bug.

This was from Techsupportforum.com user DavidJKiss

If I still have my card when my brother's arrives, I may give it a try. Like, the symtoms are spot on.