PSU or motherboard faulty

[eskimo456]

Hi there

I am currently writing this on my mobile phone so apologies for any mistakes.

My computer has been running fine for 2+ years until the other day when it froze and stopped responding. I thought nothing of it and rebooted, it crashed again so I did a harddrive scan. I have reformatted the computer and it was running fine for most of the day and then just cut out. The led lights were on and the fans were going round but there was not enough power to even allow my surge protector to boot up my other devices (it was around 30 watts).

The power cord had to be pulled out of the back as even pressing reset or power off didnt change anything. I rebooted and was doing a back up when the same thing happened , upon attempting to boot up i got a blank screen and all the fans including my GPU spinning at full speed. i removed my GPU and ran off the motherboard graphics the same thing happens. The lights and fans turn on but nothing happens, its not even booting into the bios screen. I have removed everything in stages (until i was left with a motherboard and CPu no Ram even) and still the monitor wont display anything i dont even get the logo.

I am waiting for a motherboard speaker to arrive but am figuireing it has 2 be the PSU or motherboard has any1 else had this experience and what is it more likely 2 be. I am not going to try until my speaker turns up as i dont want to damage any else in the mean time any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[flagstar]

I most likely to be PSU fault but can't rule out motherboard and RAM either...

A silly question though...
Did you pull out the RAM and test it again? Did you hear any beeping sound from it when RAM is unavailable?

**sorry didn't notice you had already test it without RAM on already so it may not RAM faulty... motherboard speaker is already integrated on your motherboard (a black cylinder with hollow hole in the centre ((much like a doughnut)) attach to your motherboard) on newer model but I guess your motherboard maybe older than that so you need to get a motherboard speaker (you can get it already by going t ocomputer local store and ask them. Surely they have it...

If there was no beep, rule RAM out, leaving motherboard and PSU. If you have another working desktop in your home, try to take out PSU from it and test it on faulty desktop.

If all goes well, it's definitely PSU fault and you need to replace it. If not, you're down with motherboard left and you already know the answer.

Did my description works?

[eskimo456]

I took apart the PSU and it was very dusty so i cleaned it up and ensured everything looked ok and then put it back together. The screen started and the bios asked 4 a system i input the hard drive and it loaded I am now doing a HDD test to ensure that its all good. My speaker should arrive tomorrow so will deffinitly input that. It has found all the RAM etc. If it does the same thing I am going to assume it is the PSU. If the motherboard was dead then should it just never start? I have connected everything and it seems ok so it would seem a coincidence if the motherboard was at fault and then everything worked but i have never seen a dead motherboard before wouold this be the case? Any advice would be helpful many thanks

[flagstar]

If it was able to detect RAM, then there's nothing wrong with your motherboard, just your PSU is not working... Consider find a replacement for your PSU...

In other cases, yes it is the symptom of a dead motherboard (near death to be precise). It doesn't have to be never start because near death motherboard will start after numerous try...

Aside from that, your computer is good, just need a good replacement for your PSU and it should be working as usual it would be.

[rubberman]

Since you said that other devices connected to your surge protector would not run either, did you think about replacing that?

[eskimo456]

My new PSU has arrived and I have put it into the computer. As of now there has been no problems the computer also seems to be running quieter and cooler. The surge protector has a built in mechanism to automatically turn off additional peripherals safely after a computer has shut down. So I can leave my monitor,external hard drive, printer plugged in and switched on etc, knowing that they will only run when my computer is on and will automatically turn off. The computer was not outputting enough power for the surge protector to realise the computer had been turned on.

Hopefully this isn't a false hope and it is know sorted *fingers crossed* seems to be running fine at the moment though.

Thanks you for all the help and suggestions