PC Starts - no motherboard actions

[agi_shi]

Hello all! I built myself a new pc and am having some problems. This problem has happened a lot lately.

This is what happens when I turn on my pc and everything works:
-Fans spin up.
-Leds light up.
-Graphics card goes to 100% and then to 5% (note: this is normal).
-POST
-Windows

But this is what has been happening lately:
-Fans spin up.
-No leds (on front of PC - no leds for HDD activity, etc - don't light up)
-Graphics card goes to 100% and stays there.
-Monitor recieves no signal (as if it isn't connected).
-No POST
-Nothing.

I have to hardware restart for the pc to start up correctly and run. Note that it is 100% stable when in Windows, it's just that sometimes it doesn't start...

What could be the cause of this? Motherboard? PSU (although, the fans DO run...)? CPU? Ram?

I'm so worried right now, this is my first build.. I appreciate all your help!

 

[Sharkfood]

We would need some system information prior to making any kind of valid assessment.

From what you've described, it sounds like a power problem.. be it an underrated or overloaded power supply, or a possibly incompatible power supply.

Antec had a few lines of even upper-end PSU's that had an incompatibility with certain Abit/Asus mainboards (even their NEO line..) but it's been long fixed/addressed. The problem manifested itself near identical to what you have described. It had something to do with one of the lower voltage rails being unusually taxed by certain series mainboards at power-on, which caused an unforseen condition for the 12v rail to handle. The result was just like your situation- no cold-power up working, but hard resets eventually could bypass the circuitry issue.

If you have a spare PSU, you might want to try that to see if the problem goes away..and if so, RMA your PSU in hopes of getting a newer revision.

More system info though (PSU, motherboard, case, cpu, mem, etc.etc.) would be helpful also.

 

[agi_shi]

Good Point

We would need some system information prior to making any kind of valid assessment.

From what you've described, it sounds like a power problem.. be it an underrated or overloaded power supply, or a possibly incompatible power supply.

Antec had a few lines of even upper-end PSU's that had an incompatibility with certain Abit/Asus mainboards (even their NEO line..) but it's been long fixed/addressed. The problem manifested itself near identical to what you have described. It had something to do with one of the lower voltage rails being unusually taxed by certain series mainboards at power-on, which caused an unforseen condition for the 12v rail to handle. The result was just like your situation- no cold-power up working, but hard resets eventually could bypass the circuitry issue.

If you have a spare PSU, you might want to try that to see if the problem goes away..and if so, RMA your PSU in hopes of getting a newer revision.

More system info though (PSU, motherboard, case, cpu, mem, etc.etc.) would be helpful also.

Thanks for replying.

Good point, I should've mentioned my parts:

These are the two that are probably causing the issue:
ECS AM2 NForce 4-MA (v1.1) Mobo
Rosewill 500W Powersupply (which on the sticker is 480W)

These... are more "quality" products:
AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+
Radeon X850XT
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Gaming Memory (2x512MB)
Normal ATX Case (this probably doesn't matter much)
Seagate 120GB Harddrive
Normal Floppy Drive (probably doesn't matter either)
Normal DVD-ROM (same thing)

The PSU says to have 18A on the first rail and 16A on the second, and my system is not all that hungry at all...

I don't have any spare powersupply (only other comp is a crappy emachines with it's crappy powersupply).... Is it possible to buy [from newegg] a powersupply so then I could test it if it works, and then if it's not the PSU's fault return it (RMA it) [even though the new powersupply has nothing wrong with it]?

Thanks in advance!

 

[agi_shi]

So... can anyone confirm it might be a powersupply problem? I can go buy a FSP Group 400W power supply to fix it, if the problem is the powersupply (FPS Group [Fortron Source] make excellent power supplies, I've heard).

 

[agi_shi]

Well, can anyone confirm that this is probably my problem?

Today in the morning it started up no problem... Though yesterday the same problem occured :/.

 

[agi_shi]

Anyone!?! Please...?

I don't want to buy a new powersupply (thinking of the new Corsair 520W [130$]) and then figure out that my powersupply had nothing to do with it.

 

[mailpup]

I don't think anyone can guarantee that over the internet. You'll just have to try it and see.

 

[agi_shi]

I don't think anyone can guarantee that over the internet. You'll just have to try it and see.

Ahh, thanks! I wasn't looking for a guarantee, it was just that I wanted to see if more than 1 people agreed it might be that.

 

[agi_shi]

Oh-oh...

Hmm... Replaced my powersupply with a beefy Antec, and it boots for about a wekk without any problems. This monday, though, after pressing the button all my fans turn on and nothing else happens, again....

What else could it be? The motherboard?...?

 

[Tedster]

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic53866.html

 

[agi_shi]

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic53866.html

I've read that article, but the point is: this only happens 10/20% of the time. So it's impossibly hard to troubleshoot if I don't know *when* it'll happen again.

I've replaced the powersupply, that's not it. I'm sure it's not the ram, I can play FEAR with mostly maxed out settings for hours with 0 errors (nor does my pc ever restart/lockup/etc.)....

I don't think it's my cpu, it wouldn't cause this kind of problem (my pc wouldn't either boot up or it would and wouldn't shut off.... ever, so it's not my processor)...

Harddrives, case, optical drives, those cannot cause this problem....

So it's up to my motherboard (some ECS) and my gfx card (Radeon X850XT)....

I'm going to replace my motherboard to start off.... What do you think about this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123004

 

[agi_shi]

I've read that article, but the point is: this only happens 10/20% of the time. So it's impossibly hard to troubleshoot if I don't know *when* it'll happen again.

I've replaced the powersupply, that's not it. I'm sure it's not the ram, I can play FEAR with mostly maxed out settings for hours with 0 errors (nor does my pc ever restart/lockup/etc.)....

I don't think it's my cpu, it wouldn't cause this kind of problem (my pc wouldn't either boot up or it would and wouldn't shut off.... ever, so it's not my processor)...

Harddrives, case, optical drives, those cannot cause this problem....

So it's up to my motherboard (some ECS) and my gfx card (Radeon X850XT)....

I'm going to replace my motherboard to start off.... What do you think about this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123004

Well.... what do you think?

 

[agi_shi]

Well....

I've now realized some things. First, my motherboard tells me that I have 5.9V on the 12V, 1.2V on the 3.3V, and other wrong voltages. Second, it tells me a constant 25C for the cpu temp., which is wrong as well.....

Does this strengthen the idea that my motherboard is the problem?