Pc on boot, No Vid, No Beep, No Usb.

[dhyta23]

Good afternoon everyone. This will be pretty long, but I want to give as much information as possible. And if anyone could help it would be swell.

My problem started on last Sunday afternoon during the very hot weather conditions, the night before was equally as warm and I turned my Pc off for the night.

At 2pm I turned on the system and saw that no Video or Keyboard control came up, so I removed the side panel and turned off the system to check if anything was wrong in.

Knowing the problems i've had with the Sapphire 4870 (512mb) I thought that bios flash I did a month ago may be creeping in again. That was a separate matter that involved some games to glitch out in an OS environment, different to this before Post error. I grabbed the 9500gt from my backup pc (which is on a 478 P4 system, DDR memory) and tried it in my system. No luck and off it when again. I click the reset button (standard reset button before turning the system on) on my mobo (P5Q deluxe) and out of the blue it came on. I took out the Nvidia and replaced the 4870 and it did not boot again, so I turned it off and pressed reset again and turned it on, which it did. Now that could've been a fluke and the Reset button could've been a Placebo effect afterall.

During the week everytime the system went off I had to do this procedure to boot it back up again when I needed to use it. It would never do it the first time and I pressed the Reset button regardless if it worked or not. And after a few times it would normally boot up (4-10) times. On Friday the Pc failed to post after over 20 tries. I looked around on the board and saw that the 4870 had 3 red lights and that the Tracer Ballistix memory isn't flashing crazy like it normally does when data is involved. I did a quick Google on my trusty Eeepc and saw that my lights matched the 3 red Lights of others.

D1601 - Red LED On, shows critical temperature fault

D1602 - Red LED On, shows External power connector A was removed

D1603 - Red LED On, shows External power connector B was removed

D601 - Red LED On, shows critical Core power fault

D601 Led is not on my board. And everything is very secure. Browsing further into forums, I checked every problem that they had also. 12v wire, unsecured cables, Pci-e x2, single slot Ram swapped accordingly, Gfx card different slots, Cmos reset. I Tried the Nvidia card again and same problem with the Ram lights still not showing and still no Vid, beeps or keyboard activity.

I took apart everything in the case and placed the mobo on the Mobo box and did the standard Cpu, Heatsink, GPU and one stick of Ram with the PSU using the Modular cables needed. ( I have inspected the cables aswell). No dice after 50 Reboots, 15 mins waits, resets, Psu cable unpluggs. Fans move, Gpu fan moves but no visual, no beeps or any keyboard. The Heatsink does warm up as it should so it's doing its job.

I've come to the conclusion that it may be the Motherboard or the Psu. As i've tried the Nvidia card and got 2 more sticks of Ram and same problem. It worked miraculously yesterday after getting the new Ram and placing them in by themselves and not booting till added the original 2 sticks aswell for it to boot first time. I thought I'd try to put the system on Standby to see if it an wake up easier but no luck. This morning i've tried restarting the system about 50+ times (placebo effect now and then) and no luck at all.

I've seen many people jump to the Psu on many threads and I'm not gunna dismiss it but sometimes I read they just like saying it straight away regardless of situation.

Specs:
Intel Q9550, 4gb (4x1gb) Tracer Ballistix 8500 (5-5-5-15). Asus P5Q Deluxe, Samsung Dvd drive and 320gb and 1Tb drives. Sapphire 4870 512mb (Bios Flashed) 4 Fans in a Antec 300 case.

PSU: (excuse me if I can't form this properly)

Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 550W

DC Output (Max output in brackets)
3,3v (24a)
5v (30a)
12v1 (20a)
12v2 (20a)
12v3 (20a)
12v4 (20a)
-12v (0,8a)
5VSB (4a)

I built the Pc in September and the only Problems till now is the 4870 Graphics Glitch and HD failing.

I just don't understand why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I just like a good clarify before I have to shell out more money in these desperate times.

Thank You for your time and I hope someone may be able to help me.

Have a good day.

[peterb]

I'd suspect the PSU first off. I don't know what the reutation of Be Quiet PSU's is, but you have narrowed it down to the two likely causes. (failed mobo or PSU)

Unfortunately the only realistic way of testing it (without expensive test gear) is by substitution.

[dhyta23]

They actually have a pretty good record in the Custom PC magazine. And it is and always has been whisper quiet. But as you can see it's a toss up between either one. The Lights mean Critical temperature and A and B Pci-E cables are removed, but I assure they are not. Also the 4870 is supposed to spin up to 100% on boot up (read its 8000+ rpm), because of the self GPU post, it doesn't (only 1000rpm+). However the Nvidia Card I try, does not need a PCI-E cable and the system still doesn't work either. Dunno if the cable (or cables) to Motherboard is not passing power through properly for the PCI-E to run.

[peterb]

Looking more like the PSU tbh. You could by a lower power cheaper one just to prove the mobo; if the mobo is faulty, you haven't spent a lot on a replacement PSU, if it is, then you can buy a better one (and put the low power one on a spares cupboard, or sell it on.

But you seem to have covered all the basic faultfinding steps and narrowed it down to the two most likely components. as a final check you could just connect the mobo and the psu and see if the fans spin.

If you feel confident to do so, you could test the psu using a dummy load - a car headlight bulb (about 60 watts) makes a good load for the 12 volt line, and you could use the same for the 5 volt line, if they light up when you pwer up the PSU (you will need to connect the two relevenat pins together on the main connector) the PSU is probably OK. However you should only do this if you feel confident to do so, and you should check the connections you make very carefully. One final word - only do that if you are onfident in your own ability to do so. Otherwise, if you have a local computer shop, they may be able to test it for you.

[peterb]

Duplicate

[Salazaar]

Before you go about replacing anything, have you tried this...?

When your PC fails to POST, have you tried turning the power right off at the PSU/power socket or whatever (as opposed to using the PC or motherboard's power switch)?

There is a 'feature' of a lot of Asus board of a certain age which I've noticed which leads to a failure to POST but which is resolved by fully powering down for 30s or so. I noticed it on my P5B and I've heard reports from a lot of other people with similar Asus boards which all seem to stem from the same problem.