so my pc died : (

i never thought the day would come. my pc is on 24/7 for about 2 years now. occasional restarts of course. but i came back from being out of town this weekend and all the lights are on, and so are the fans, but monitor has no signal. i hard boot it. no familiar beep sound when processor is supposed to post. and screen is blank.

probably not the video card, since processor doensnt get recognized. i'm placing my bet on the processor or the motherboard (i knicked a trace with the screwdriver when installing the CPU fan, but it has worked fine for the past 3 months after that. so i dont think it would just die.) the processor might have reached the end of its life at long last, especially since it has been removed and reinstalled numerous times, and the core might have had enough stress on it over the years to finally give in.

i hope it's the proc and i can just swap. cause my main system is on a RAID-0 array and very few things are backed up and i dont know if there is a way to reinitialize the raid array and keep the drives unchanged with a new but identical mobo. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Leon.

Good luck. Hope you can retreive your data!

well, if the fans and lights are running its not the mobo, right?

first check for all voltages coming out of PSU.

Then reseat cpu, and memory, try again...

Does the mobo beep these weird and alarming patterns?
Do you hear the HDs clicking?
Did you check the obvious, the monitor?

Ok, I don't know too much on the topic, only what has happened to me in the past. So, here goes... my brother's computer did about the same thing you are describing. It would only turn on. Fans would work and everything, but no beeps, blank screen, and nothing would run. We thought it was the CPU or the mo bo too. But, then (I don't know how or why) we decided it was the Power supply. So, we replaced it and it worked fine. Those things tend to wear out because of all the dust and stuff going thought there. So, since they are not too expensive ($50-90) it might be worth a try. Just my 2cents.

They make power supply testers, I've troubleshooted quite a few PS units that I suspected were bad and have found it to be consistantly correct in its results.

blow out all the dust and crap that builds up in a 24/7 pc and inspect for bulging or leaking capacitors.
very common problem.
if ok try a psu from another box or a spare.

if i suspest psu i take out every thing on pc but cpu mother bord and video card.to see if it post under less load a course leave hsf coencted to

and memeory lol

[ QUOTE ]
ACMarina said:
They make power supply testers, I've troubleshooted quite a few PS units that I suspected were bad and have found it to be consistantly correct in its results.

[/ QUOTE ]

PC Power & Cooling makes a great ATX PSU tester for $10.

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/cooling/tester/index.htm

Their PSUs are the best.

it was the CPU, as predicted. i'm running on a spare 2200+ now.

my PSU is a 480W Thermaltake Xaser III purepower.

most power supply quality can be deduced from the PSU weight (go read some research articles). which is funny. you end up buying it by the LB cause quality components like inductors, are always heavier. and this is truer in power applications than anywhere else.

this thing was $130. weighs 7-10 lbs and yes, it hauls major ***, i had no doubt that it was NOT my PSU.

I clean out my computer dust constantly. including all 6 fans. and clean out all the heatsinks that get clogged once in a while as well. the side of my PC stays open for extra cooling at all times. i'm thinking of going water cooled, a lot less physical stress on the CPU when you need to install a headsink, since the water block doesnt weigh anything it's much harder to damage the CPU. also quieter.

glad i didnt lose my raid array. that would have sucked a lot.

i'll prolly replace the mobo with an identical one that doesnt have a knicked trace on it anyhow. but probably not till i put water cooling on it.

considering my sig, it would have been foolish of me to build myself a computer that couldnt pull its own weight. unfortunately even my supercomputers are subject to the quality of the components and the QC of the manufacturers that go into each custom box. first time a cpu just died on me.

i'm glad i diagnosed it properly (adds notch to belt). and even more glad to not have lost the RAID-0 data. it has all been backed up now. onto the 200gb non-raid controlled drive.

thanks for the advice everyone,
Leon.

[ QUOTE ]
Leeoniya said:
most power supply quality can be deduced from the PSU weight (go read some research articles). which is funny. you end up buying it by the LB cause quality components like inductors, are always heavier. and this is truer in power applications than anywhere else.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree... there's no substitute for a transformer with enough copper in it to handle the load. Glad to see that it's up and running again.

Cool, I actually gave good advice. A first for everything right. Well let's see here, maybe I can do it again. On my computer (i guess i am not so bad with computers once I think about it) I have a total of eight fans. Three internal air fans, three fans that blow out (one of those is the power supply) and 2 that blow in (intake fans). So, if you think about it, dust only really comes in at 2 places. I was thinking about it 4 moths ago and I wanted to fix it. So I devised a plan. I work at target and we sell air filters for those small space air filters. So, if i put an air filter over the intake fans, then taped them there. I used to have to clean out the whole machine constantly because I have 2 cants and it would always get filled with dust and hair. Now I only clean it about once every other month. It has worked great. Then all you have to do is clean off the filter with a hair role or a vacuum. It works great for me. Here are some pictures.
Here is my machine. (It is a server chassis, about $90.)

Inside View

The Set up

The dirt off it.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

bole64,

I did something similar. I bought a huge Antec file server case 'cause I hate working in tight places. I trippled the air intake by mounting two Panaflo 120 mm fans, each behind 1/2" air conditioner filter media. It is amazing how much gunk they stop. I have to clean them ablut every three or four months. It saves lots of wear and tear on machines that run 24/7.

The knobs and blue leds in the top bay are part of a Rheobus controler for the fans.



I went with a more industrial look.

i use a paint brush with soft bristles to vlean off crud from mobo for heat sink off cpu i remove it and clean it psu i need to do more with

I read somewhere that even with ZIFF sockets, AMD only rates their CPUs for a total of 5 insertions. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif If that's true, be careful.

sub umbra i belive that with the older cpus this is a amd 64 bit it looks way more sturdier then my amd barton 2500.them where easy to crush the core

it's still beyond me why they had to make the core like a grain of sand and force the user to gently balance a 1/4lb heatsink on top of it. i've never damaged one, but it's pretty scary putting that much weight onto something so tiny that costs over $100. sort of like balancing an elephant on a very fragile vase.

Leon

I'm glad you got your box back up with a minimum of dammage.