Brainstorming Needed (PC Repair)
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:07 pm
So last night Anaie started having issues with his computer. He got a BSOD which pointed toward his vid card (NVidia), but while researching it, there seemed to be absolutely no consensus as to whether it was a driver issue, or a hardware issue. He's had these cards (SLI's pair) for a couple of years now. One guy had stated that when he removed his card he found melted transistors, so I recommended that we take out the 'primary' card and use the 'secondary'.
Prior to this, he'd tried changing drivers while in Safe Mode (the only way he could boot) to no avail.
As if this wasn't enough, now it seems like his power appears to be failing? Thought it might be the button itself, but today when I booted it up, I got it passed start-up to the Windows logo (sat there for 10-15 seconds) when the power suddenly cut off. The only power cables we changed where removing the ones to his old card.
I'm wondering if the sudden power failure could be coming from a signal from the CPU? While we were de-dusting the interior (don't think the case has been opened since we switched the video cards), I'd forgotten that I'd gotten what I can only describe as the most fucking stupid heatsink/fan combo in the world. It attaches to the mobo via little twist knobs, and I completely had forgotten that it would remove the entire thing, not just the fan. We had to fight with it to get it re-seated, but I didn't have any silver paste to reapply. Could this be causing the sudden power loss?
So fellow PC builders, give me your thoughts.
Sticking this here as a note to myself (gotta check, think my dad has a multimeter; hopefully if he does, he knows where it's at):
[quote]Try to verify (as well as you can) that the PSU works. If you have a multimeter, you can do a rough checkout of a PSU using the "paper clip trick". You plug the bare PSU into the wall. Insert a paper clip into the green wire pin and one of the black wire pins beside it. That's how the case power switch works. It applies a ground to the green wire. Turn on the PSU and the fan should spin up. If it doesn't, the PSU is dead.
If you have a multimeter, you can check all the outputs. Yellow wires should be 12 volts, red 5 volts, orange 3.3 volts, blue wire -12 volts, purple wire is the 5 volt standby. They can be checked in operation from the back of the main power plug.
The gray wire is really important. It sends a control signal called something like "PowerOK" from the PSU to the motherboard. It should go from 0 volts to about 5 volts within a half second of pressing the case power switch. If you do not have this signal, your computer will not boot. The tolerances should be +/- 5%. If not, the PSU is bad.
Unfortunately (yes, there's a "gotcha" ), passing all the above does not mean that the PSU is good. It's not being tested under any kind of load. But if the fan doesn't turn on, the PSU is dead.[/quote]
Prior to this, he'd tried changing drivers while in Safe Mode (the only way he could boot) to no avail.
As if this wasn't enough, now it seems like his power appears to be failing? Thought it might be the button itself, but today when I booted it up, I got it passed start-up to the Windows logo (sat there for 10-15 seconds) when the power suddenly cut off. The only power cables we changed where removing the ones to his old card.
I'm wondering if the sudden power failure could be coming from a signal from the CPU? While we were de-dusting the interior (don't think the case has been opened since we switched the video cards), I'd forgotten that I'd gotten what I can only describe as the most fucking stupid heatsink/fan combo in the world. It attaches to the mobo via little twist knobs, and I completely had forgotten that it would remove the entire thing, not just the fan. We had to fight with it to get it re-seated, but I didn't have any silver paste to reapply. Could this be causing the sudden power loss?
So fellow PC builders, give me your thoughts.
Sticking this here as a note to myself (gotta check, think my dad has a multimeter; hopefully if he does, he knows where it's at):
[quote]Try to verify (as well as you can) that the PSU works. If you have a multimeter, you can do a rough checkout of a PSU using the "paper clip trick". You plug the bare PSU into the wall. Insert a paper clip into the green wire pin and one of the black wire pins beside it. That's how the case power switch works. It applies a ground to the green wire. Turn on the PSU and the fan should spin up. If it doesn't, the PSU is dead.
If you have a multimeter, you can check all the outputs. Yellow wires should be 12 volts, red 5 volts, orange 3.3 volts, blue wire -12 volts, purple wire is the 5 volt standby. They can be checked in operation from the back of the main power plug.
The gray wire is really important. It sends a control signal called something like "PowerOK" from the PSU to the motherboard. It should go from 0 volts to about 5 volts within a half second of pressing the case power switch. If you do not have this signal, your computer will not boot. The tolerances should be +/- 5%. If not, the PSU is bad.
Unfortunately (yes, there's a "gotcha" ), passing all the above does not mean that the PSU is good. It's not being tested under any kind of load. But if the fan doesn't turn on, the PSU is dead.[/quote]