hello! it's my first time posting a thread, i don't know how this things work, so i'll head straight to the problem: i was playing crysis, then i paused and went away for about 15 minutes. when i got back, my pc was dead, i couldn't start it anymore, on occasional tries i witnessed some kind of sparks, but it looked like the pc started for half a second, not an usual spark though... i think it's overheated, but i seriously doubt in this, i have intel q8300, nvidia gt9800, 4gb ram, gigabyte ep43-s3l motherboard, it's a stock computer, as far i can remember it's normal temperatures were around 40°C, i the time i was running crysis, xfire, torrent, and i think messenger, but until that point, the pc handled it with no problem...sorry for bad english and probably some stupid information, i'm a noob at this things, and i hope someone will be able to help me

What do you mean by "stock" computer, is it a brand name? Have you added any components since you bought it? What is the make and model of the Power Supply?

Since it is Summer time and a HOT one at that, depending on where you live, how is the computer plugged in to the wall outlet? Are there many devices on the same circuit, any Window Air Conditioning?

Is the I/O shield still there at the Rear Panel (the silver metal plate covering the rear panel connectors)?

I suggest not attempting to turn the system ON again till we take a look inside your system first.

Check the Capacitors on your mother board and video card (even in the power supply if you can) against Capacitor plague

by stock computer i mean, that i haven't touched it's components, they're just the way they were, when i bought the computer

along the computer there are speakers and monitor plugged in the same wall outlet, window is in the next room, it's usually opened and so are the doors between rooms

capacitors are ok, the circuit is clean

the "sparks" are just the flash of the lights, as if computer has started just for a moment

Good question mailpup

Two brains are always better than one.


EDIT:

hmmm ... Gremlins perhaps, looks like we need more than two brains here, if it were me, I would have gone to bare minimum may be even with the board out of the case and go step by step, otherwise would be guess after guess till someone hits the nail!

Do you have another power supply to test? What about a video card?

i have an old computer (2002 or 2003), you think it's power supply would be ok?

what do you think it's wrong with the video card?

i've found a tutorial about my problem on the internet, and i got to a point where i had to disconnect all devices but one ram, video card, power supply and of course motherboard, so i tried this, and i remembered that once my friend had a problem with ram. one of his rams was bad, so the whole computer was dead because of it. you think i should try one ram at time to every port?

I'm not saying it is the video card, it might be, since we can't see your system we can only assume.

If you are up to it, follow that guide and give us detail results.

I meant is there a Window Air Conditioning Unit on the same circuit or a Centeral Air in the house, I loose count how many power supplies I replace in the Summer or other components due to power fluctuations.

If you can read the label for both the power supplies then we can tell you if you can use the other, but most probably we will have you try it with everything else disconnected and only the CPU, heat sink and fan, video card, keyboard and as you mentioned, single stick of RAM tried in different sockets.

True about faulty RAM stopping the system from POSTing, same is true with a dead hard drive and such.

so about the video card...should i try to run only the motherboard?

there is no conditioning unit in the same circuit

Do you mean there is an on-board "video card"? Then yes by all means try that but do remove the add in video card first

Otherwise I don't know what you mean by "so about the video card...should i try to run only the motherboard?"

in mean should i remove my video card and try to start the computer just to see if the leds turn on and if the fan is spinning

That will not prove anything, Computer power supplies are switching power supplies, in case the power supply is bad, there might be enough juice to spin the drives and make things light up but it will not pin point anything.

I would disconnect hard drives, optical drives (both power and data cables) all other add-in cards except the video card, everything unplugged from the rear panel except the keyboard.
Disconnect all the fans except the CPU and Video card fan if any, try with different sticks of RAM in different sockets.

Then we need to know if your monitor is OK, does it say "No Signal"?

Next we will try the same thing with your other power supply.

i tried ram configurations, but i'm still getting only flashes, the tutorial says that "if the computer seems to be workin for few seconds" i should try cleaning CMOS, in my case there is like half a second time, but i guess i should do the same procedure

keyboard seems to be working, i get no response from caps lock and num lock, but the third button (f mode - it enables a second function for the function keys) is working properly

maybe it's just friday the 13th and some bad luck xD

the old power supply is no good, maybe i can try the old graphic card

Again with not enough info, we don't know if the other video card is PCI-E or not, most probably it is an AGP card, a PCI card would also work.

If it is an ATX power supply even with 20pin instead of 24pin, it might work with all other components removed, the vid card should POST with 2D.

Can you look at the power supplies and give us some information from the label; else we are just going to keep guessing.

the old card is agp

new supply
+3.3v +5v +12V1 +12V2 -12v +5Vsb
22A 21A 15A 10A 0.3A 2A
old supply:
+3.3V +5V +12V -5V -12V +5VSB
14A 18A 9A 0.5A 0.5A 1.5A

No, you cannot use the older power supply and you should get a new power supply any way, what you posted is not enough considering it most probably is a generic power supply since you didn't provide make and model/

What is your budget for a power supply so we can recommend one or two choices.

thank you for help guys, the problem was the graphics card, i bought a new one and everything works perfectly

Thanks for the update.

Still it concerns us how your card died. If you want to go further, give us the make and model of your new video card and the power supply from the lable. You don't want another dead card