Hi all, I was wondering if any of you might have a clue what has gone terribly wrong with my pc. I was using it, and suddenly it went off, like the power had been cut. I've checked all the connections and such and can't find a reason why the tower won't turn back on. It has a little led light inside which turns off when I turn the tower off with its power switch and thats about the only sign of electrical life I can find inside the tower. I didn't get any warning signs that something was wrong. Sooooo, anyone got any ideas? Any thing I can try at home to trouble shoot? Thanks, Angela

How old is it? Newer models let the processor turn off the power supply. Older models the power supply and fan runs even if the board is dead. If it's old and the Power supply fan doesn't run when you turn it on then I'd guess power supply. You said you checked connections. Does that mean you took the case off and checked the power to the drives? If so do you have a long power connection to the mother board and another 4 pin plug to the mother board? Is the little red LED in the power supply or on the Motherboard?

it could be several things. Some system boards will cut things off if the system gets too hot (though usually they'll honk like the dickens..;)
Another possibility is the power switch itself..does it feel 'right' when you click it? it could just be stuck, or out of alignment.
Usually there's a fan connected to, or even inside the power supply..if you don't see that turning (or most newer models have one or more fans in the vicinity of the processor chip itself..the (metallic waffle thang)..sometimes.
Another thing that stumped me about 15 years ago..some power supplies have a 110/220v swtich..if that gets popped to the other side, you won't get it to turn on..
these are just some of the many possibilities..try them out, and report back to us, y'hear?..;)

Power supplies will also cut out if they get overheated, for example if a fan stops, or intakes get blocked. DON'T open the power supply yourself, unless you know exactly what you are doing. This way lies the dark side of the force (and the safety switch blowing whenever you plug the computer in...)

:( New computer as of last year. No fans are running on anything, have about 4 or 5 inside. The led is on the motherboard not near the powersupply. Not sure about that 4pin thing. I don't think the front power switch is off because I'm not even getting the green led light in the front. Seems the only thing working is a mysterious little red light way down low in the tower. sigh I'll come back on with more details of the components in case that'll help. I just wish there was a breaker switch that I could just flip. I'll be back. Thanks guys.

Well I don't have the specs on the powersupply right now. the processor is an AMD Athlon XP 2800 and the motherboard is an Abit NF7-S nForce2 Athlon XP. I know that I specified to the person buying the powersupply that it needed to be more than what I needed. I didn't want to skimp on it. :/ Thanks again for any help you can give me.

There is one more thing you should consider, 'remote access', where someone has acquired access and control over your computer.....it happened to my hubby, between firewall setups. He went to a site that had all these pops and one of them we don't know which, when he clicked to close it, it downloaded something onto his computer. It would run stuff in the background we couldn't trace, shut down and start up on it's own, etc. I can't remember the site he went to, to solve the problem, but it's a b*tch to get rid of.....but that's only a possibility if you don't have a firewall, or other form of blocking unwanted hacking...

Ang before you go lokking into things others have suggested here is one thing that may be the problem that could save you $$$. we had a power cut on Tuesday the same thing happened to the girlfriends computer after it, wouldn't turn on. Now if you use a power borad to plug your computer into that has a safty cut of switch on it for power spikes check that first. If its not that get the power surply on the computer checked/changed. that could have been damaged. Your power surply isd a 400-450 watt one. only one that comes out in the AMD ATHLON XP 2800, thats all you need to know with it really. If it is the power surply they are easy to change over even a dumby like myself can do that :) that way it will save you the $$$ on the labour.

Well I'm on dial up and the thing just shut off and I can't start it back up, there doesn't seem to be any power in the tower. :/

If non of the fans turn, not even in the power supply, then the first thing I would try myself was to put in another powersupply, however this little red light burning is odd 'cause that would mean there is electricity going round so the powersupply can't be so broken that it does nothing, but then the question still remains, why doesn't it run it's fans if it does send some power to the motherboard? (I'm assuming the light is on the motherboard 'cause you said it's all the way at the bottom in the tower) If you have guarantee on it, then do NOT open the powersupply 'cause usually you'll blow your guarantee that way and the store won't give a replacement for free anymore.

I'm hoping its the power supply. That came separate from the other components. Maybe its only in the 300's watt range, not sure I don't have the specs on it right now. I do use a battery back up thingy and everything else off of it has power and I changed which slot the tower was plugged into. So I'm hoping its a power supply thing. (Ang crosses her fingers) Just don't know how I can check it before going out and buying another power supply.

Hi Ray, good advice. Any chance you can get into the bryce chat room? I think you once said that you can't but thought I'd ask. I'm heading there for a bit.

Usually the wattage is written on the powersupply itself :) Maybe you can swap a powersupply from another 'puter first, just for checking :) maybe from the old 'puter if you still have it, or maybe even the 'puter of the neighbours lol if they trust you with it :)

I still can't get in the chatroom :( I need this java thingy but it won't download! not even my dad could get it to download on my 'puter :( but I am online on msn (rayraz.rv@hccnet.nl) and yahoo messenger (ruben_vreeken@yahoo.com)

I once had a PC that burnt out only one of the voltage lines in its power supply - the PC went dead as you described, but I seem to remember there was an LED on somewhere (it was lit by a different voltage line than the one that burnt out). A PC power supply supplies voltages at several different levels - from memory they are +5V, -12V +12V. In my case the +5V line was ok (I think this was the case), but the -12V line was the one that burnt out. Just had to replace the power supply and everything was fine. You might need a multimeter to see if this is the case on your PC - i.e. by actually measuring the voltages coing out of the power supply.

back in the day, Compaq used to have what we called 'the 5 volt light' on the motherboards of computers up to about the Pentium II (boy, am I dating myself..;)..could mean that part of the power supply is sending the correct voltage, but part isn't. When you turn on the system, do you hear the hard drive spin up? If you're hearing just clicking sounds, instead of that dynamo hum, you might try disconnecting the power cable to the HD (don't do this if you don't feel comfortable with it), and see what develops. This is a time-consuming but often-effective way we used to isolate problems back in the day (crikeys..I just realized I've been using PC's for 20 years as of yesterday..first powered up an XP on Jan 5, 1985..kaff kaff..;) good luck..and to be honest, if we get too 'technical' on you, take it to a technician..

Message edited on: 01/06/2005 21:00

thanks, I'm really hoping its the power supply. I'll let you guys know what I find out.

This may sound dumb, but have you tried a different wall socket? or powerstrip? I have the same exact setup as you ang. Nvidia nforce 2 board, and amd athlon xp 2800. $50 watt power supply. My power supply fan went out recently, and it was exactly a year old. It could be an Nvidia issue being hard on power supplies. Just a guess. Hope you get it working again.

Rayraz, I had a problem with getting Java until recently, kept getting an installer error. If I remember correctly there is a "download offline " option on the site which I think I accessed through the troubleshooting page and that did it.
Ang, sorry youre having troubles. Cant offer any better advice than you already have but I got my fingers crossed for you.

Message edited on: 01/07/2005 00:40

Sam, I'll check it out! thanx! I've tried the manual download thingy but that one starts this installer also, but a normal download would probably work yea :D

Hope you can get it fixed soon, Ang! Good Luck!

FIXED!! It was the power supply. Thanks all for you help!