computer is dead

[SirChick]

My pc out of no where just decided it won't turn on when i press the power button.

A single LED is on suggesting the PSU is giving power but no fans turn, not beeps no hard drive moment no GPU fan going either.

So i thought naturally PSU must be screwed so i replaced, next thing i know i plug the NEW PSU and it is still not turning on.

So how can i test what is causing it ? I'm pretty sure the new PSU is not broken its just out of the box as of when i post this.

I took my GPU out and my sound card and left my ram in, and no difference, so i changed the ram into the other slots and still no fix.

At this point it is looking to be the motherboard has fried of old age (5 years). Prior to this death i did clean it, maybe i caused some kinda of charge from cleaning the dust which frazzled it?

But i don't want to be spending money on replacements on expensive motherboards if the problem might be more trivial (and cheaper).

Please help with some advice.


Thanks.

[Stephen C]

Have you checked the power switch?

[SirChick]

The switch is on cos the LED on the mobo lights up... if your referring to the switch on the PSU

[mikerr]

computer is dead ... long live the iPad !

Oh, wrong forum

[Stephen C]

The power switch that connects to the motherboard header.

[SirChick]

So the mobo is fried there no way to test it ?

[oldboy47]

Had similar with two of my own PC's in the past - one Dell and one HP, both running XP. The Dell problem was the graphics card (very helpful manual on their website) - replaced and got full operation. Had no joy with the HP though but fortunately the HDs worked fine in other machines which enabled recovery.

[SirChick]

I removed most of my components to test if it was but to no avail. So guess its fried the mobo what a shame

[leonkehoe]

Let me explain what Zap is saying because he makes a good suggestion. The switch you press on the front of your machine creates a circuit. If its broken the circuit won't be made when you press it and the machine won't turn on. Follow the wire from the switch on the front of the case to the motherboard, it will connect to two pins, remove it from those pins and create a circuit between them by touch both pins with a piece of metal at the same time. Does the machine switch on?

I'd also try removing all of your components and then rebuild your computer outside of its case, something might be shorting.

[SirChick]

Yeah i removed everything and re-built it. To no avail.

With regards to the switch, i removed the switch and put it in my secondary and slightly older computer, and that worked the PC turned on fine, so that would suggest the switch was working.

[Flash477]

I know that you said you had tried moving the memory to different slots, but have you tried just 1 piece of memory at a time? it could be either a slot, some memory or a combination of both.

[SirChick]

Yeah tried that aswell, still won't switch on, when i changed my jumper on the mobo to the reset option, suddenly the light on SD card read lights up when i switch on, but again nothing else happened other than that.

Don't know why that jumper made an extra LED to turn on though.