System does not Power Up—Please Help

[Jackal]

Please help. A couple of weeks ago when I would start my computer, the front panel light and fans would run, but I couldn’t get any video signal. To get the computer started, I needed to press and hold the power switch a couple of times to get the video to display. After 3 or 4 tries, the computer would receive the signal and would start-up. I would hear 2 beeps and see a warning message telling me that “overclocking failed”, although I am not overclocking my system. I went into the setup menu and checked all of the settings, which seemed to be in order. One morning after holding down the power button to reset the system, I smelled something burning within the case, but I didn’t see any smoke. I visually inspected the CPU, Motherboard, video card, and wires, but couldn’t see any evidence of something getting fried.

Now I am having the following problem—when the power button is pressed, there is no display, fans are not spinning, and the power light on front panel lights up for a fraction of a second and then goes out. The system retains the state of not being powered on, although the green standby LED light on my motherboard does light up. Both the 20-pin and the 4-pin ATX connectors are attached to the motherboard. I thought the power supply was the problem, so I replaced it with a new one, but I am having the same problem. The front panel light and fans will run without any video display if I attach the 20-pin connector and not the 4-pin connector, so the power button on the case does not appear to be the problem. Any troubleshooting help would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my system details:
MB: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 800FSB with Hyper-Threading enabled
VGA: BFG Technologies Asylum GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 128 MB AGP
RAM: 1 GB
HDD: Maxtor 120GB
DVD-RW: Plextor 16X; Lite-on 4X
PWR: Ultra X-Connect 500W ATX

 

[DonNagual]

Ouch. That sucks. <-- unhelpful sympathy.

Good call on trying the power supply first, too bad it wasn't the solution. Sounds to me like a toasted motherboard, especially if you had a smoke smell coming out.

If you have some other parts to swap around and test one at a time, that is really the only way to troubleshoot. If you don't, then take it in to a shop and have them try and find where the problem is.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[shaggy98]

Hi,
I know this initial post was almost a year ago, but I am having almost identical symptoms on my machine...Computer seemed ok, then it was running kind of loud, then it would start up but crash after windows opened for a minute. Now, it tries to start up, the fans start, and boom the computer shuts down, but the green light in front and a red light in front are lit up...Asked around and some people thought it was the power supply...I suspect a crashed Hard Drive...But, do these symptoms match a crashed HD? Is it possible the PC will attempt to start, then crash right away if the HD is done? Or are there any steps I could take to debug this, without having to buy a bunch of PC parts? Any help is appreciated - thanks