Red light

[jasonwalters]

can anyone help my packard wont switch on it just turns on for 2 seconds with a red light i have tried a new power lead and changed motherboard battery the fans kick in but then all switch off please help thank you

 

[bigp17]

it sounds like the PSU might be faulty - or something plugged into the motherbaord is holding the voltages down.

first thing to try would be to unplug everything you dont need.
i.e. CD drives, Hard drives, remove all but one memory simm (unless you need a pair to start - then leave in 2) any other cards (except the video card) attached to the motherboard.

Start up and see if you get to the BIOS (or to the point where it says that there are no system disks present)

If you cant get your PC to stay up for any lenght of time with minimal spec
try swapping out the power supply

Again - leave a minimal spec, and add the cards and drives back in one at a time.
restarting each time.

if the PC fails to stay up when you add an item - it is almost definately going to be that part that has failed, or has a faulty cable or connector.

Please remember to use ESD protection when touching anything inside your PC

 

[schm1tty]

Is the led on the psu red? If so then that means it's a bad psu.

 

[jasonwalters]

hi i does not have a led on the psu i have removed and will buy a new psu hopefully it will work can i swap a 250 watt for a higher watt or will i blow the mother board

 

[schm1tty]

You can go as high as you want. The higher the wattage, the more that can be plugged into the computer(more hdd's better gpu's, 8 pin cpu's, etc).

The thing that would damage electronics is the voltage, if the voltage is too high then things will be blown. And since all psu's have the same voltage rails there will never be a worry about "blowing" a mobo. Standardization for the win

 

[jasonwalters]

thanks for the help i dont really know much about the workings of a computor before i buy a psu is there any way to see if it is broken would it do anything if i plugged it in when not connected to the computor like the fan running ,which it does not

 

[schm1tty]

The fan will not turn on when the psu is just plugged in, it has to receive the power on signal. You can jump the connections on the 20/24 pin connection to turn it on, however I don't recommend that because one of the affects from messing that up is death. You can purchase psu testers, they are fairly cheap(I have seen then go around $10 to $20 on newegg.com), and some places will test your psu for free. The past year I worked for Computer Renaissance and whenever people would bring in a psu, we could plug it into our tester, give it power and then you can give them a simple answer on if the psu is dead or not.

Good luck, hope everything works out!