PC won't boot up - no beeps, fans all work. Bad board or Power Supply?

Question

I leave my tower on and turn off my monitor. Last night, I went out and there were storms. Didn't check and went to bed and forgot about it being on.

This morning, went to turn on monitor and it was locked up. Red and yellow lights on panel were solid. I tried to do a hard reboot (constantly pushing power button) but it wouldn't power down. Had to flip the switch in back. Switched back on, pushed power button, got the lights on, and fans whirred. Monitor made connection, but then went off since no data. No mobo beeps or HD clicks though. Couldn't power down AGAIN, so switched off and looked inside case.

Power supply, case and cpu fans all turn. Yellow light on board comes on. Reset the CMOS jumper, but no change. The board is getting SOME type of power since all the fans are running, but it doesn't seem to be activating anything. Does that mean I've got a bad board, power supply or something else? Everything was plugged into a surge protector, so I'm not really sure what happened.

Pulled out ram. Tried to boot without any in, no beeps. Put new stick in, still no beeps.

Pulled all cables off the board, just tried to boot w/ RAM and no drives. Still the same. Still no beeps. Still thinking it is the power supply, board or cpu. Any way to tease apart which w/o buying a new one of each?

Answer 1

In addition to what the other posters have said, it IS possible that your power supply is still bad. Sometimes, they fizzle out and supply some power, but not the full load. I had this happen with one of my machines a year ago.

You can buy a tester for about 10-15 bucks to see if it is producing the correct power. It's a good investment to have. It's the cheapest thing to troubleshoot. Also, since you mentioned there were storms, that's often the first thing to go, aside from the board itself. Did you smell anything "burnt?" Assuming that is fine, I'd assume it was a board/cpu issue.

Since you already pulled all the peripherals and didn't get any "beeps" from taking out your ram entirely, either the psu isn't giving enough power to the board to GIVE beeps (especially since none of your drives powered up at all) or your bios isn't working enough to care and your board got fried (maybe taking your cpu with it).

Before running out and buying ram, a new board, a new cpu and all that, try the tester. You can also take it to a shop to have it tested. If you can't find one, a new psu is still the cheapest option to replace if you've got to start buying components. Just make sure to get one with equal or higher wattage or you might not have enough power to juice up all the components you have.

Check and see if any friends have a similar wattage psu. Maybe you can swap theirs in for a minute and see what happens. Also, for future protection, make sure you use a surge protector on ALL components that run into your machine, including the phone line on your modem. Some people even reccommend replacing them every year. Best of luck to you!

Answer 2

No beeps normally means either the RAM or the Motherboard/CPU. If you have another identical stick of RAM handy, that's the easiest test. Remove the old RAM and put in the new stick, then power it back up. If it works now, your old RAM is shot. If not, either the motherboard or CPU is dead.

Answer 3

best way to test is rip out everything, ide cables, sata cables, pci cards not required for post like sound, tv cards etc..
all led cable not required for bootup as well. and remove all power cables from the drives like hdd/cdrw etc..
and then turn on.. if you get something on your screen re-attach 1 piece of hardware at a time until it doesnt work and then u know what is faulty.

if none of that works, take out the RAM this should cause a memory alarm, not stop beeping then will know its either the cpu/power supply other motherboard.

Answer 4

I had the same problem with my computer the other day, turns out the cpu fan would pop out of it's secure lock and my computer would shut down to prevent CPU overheating.... it's worth a try to check your CPU fan ^^

Answer 5

The power supply is working, the problem lies in your hardware. as you said, u replace the ram and it still freeze. the last 2 possible hardware failure could be your Processor and Motherboard. In your case, the motherboard is most probably dead.

Answer 6

it is not in any respect a reliable theory to interrupt right into a abode windows replace and close the computing gadget down. this could bring about corruption of the working device. even nevertheless, it does certainly sound like a hardware subject. maximum probable the ability grant.