Have power but no POST, front LED blinking, weird sounds...

[zx81]

Hi,

My PSU probably died, but I was wondering if anyone here have seen similar symptoms. First of all the PSU turns on as soon as I flip the switch on the back of the PSU, previously I had to press the power button on the front of the case to turn it on. I cannot turn the PSU off using this front power button either, even if I keep it pressed for a long time.
After powering up the computer gets power (all the fans start spinning) but id does not POST, just the red LED on the front of the case and green stanby LED on MoBo start pulsating and I can hear ticking (with changing frequency) and high pitched sound coming from the power supply, it also smells funny.
All points to the PSU failure but maybe someone has any other ideas?

My rig's specs:

PSU: HIPER HPU-4K580-MS 580W ATX12V v2.2
MoBo: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
RAM: OCZ Performance Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz
Video: EVGA 256-P2-N381-TX GeForce 6800XT 256MB
HDD: 2xWD 250GB SATA; 1xMaxtor 200GB PATA
DVD-RW: Sony DRU-810A-R, Samsung SHS162LBEBN with Lightscribe
WiFi: D-Link DWL-G520
TV-adapter: Hauppauge! WinTV-HVR-1800 ATSC/QAM NTSC/FM 78521 LF

[caperjack]

i agree its sounds like your power supply and you could do more damage leaving it run ,looking for other ideas .go get a new power supply now!!
the front button will not shut it down until it actually boots up and gets shut down correctly

[jbennet]

First of all the PSU turns on as soon as I flip the switch on the back of the PSU

my pc does that too. When i flick the switch it turns on monentairaly then turns off again.

After powering up the computer gets power (all the fans start spinning) but id does not POST, just the red LED on the front of the case and green stanby LED on MoBo start pulsating and I can hear ticking (with changing frequency) and high pitched sound coming from the power supply, it also smells funny.

Ok thats not normal. The smell is probably ozone or burst caps. Turn off and unplug your PC immediately or you run the risk of damaging it, or even starting an fire. Get a new PSU.

[zx81]

Thanks guys. I just took my PSU and sent it back to the manufacturer. Fortunately it was still on warranty (it came with 3 year warranty). After some digging on the web I found that this model of HIPER PSU frequently fails after a year.

[jbennet]

look for one with a better MTBF (mean time between failures)

Hipers are cheap. A "600w" is like £18 lol. A decent 600w should be about £50

[zx81]

Thanks jbennet.
It has been some time since I got replacement PSU (refurbished) from HIPER. It works fine now and I still have warranty, so I will risk using it until it dies for good. Then I will try finding something higher quality.

A warning to all who read this.

Cheap power supplies can really easily turn into Bad power supplies. Can kill your whole system, I've had that hapen. This guy got lucky, it doesn't usually happen that it fails without taking other parts out with it.

[caperjack]

I was wondering if anyone here have seen similar symptoms. First of all the PSU turns on as soon as I flip the switch on the back of the PSU, previously I had to press the power button on the front of the case to turn it on. I cannot turn the PSU off using this front power button either, even if I keep it pressed for a long time.

first thing that comes to mind is the setting in power options so right click on you desktop go to properties /screen saver ,power /advanced/ make sure its set to shut down, for when i press the front panel button.

[mechbas]

Your first and best clue was running fan and no post. The fan runs on DC. The mobo runs on AC & DC for a variety of functions. Basically, even with valid DC, no AC means no boot, post or anything else from mobo. Further, no AC means no bios access.