Whoah... no POST... how to diagnose?

[Coyote]

Halp!

Anybody know how to diagnose a faulty PSU? I did a bit of upgrading to my rig this week (my old specs are here: http://www.h-townmadness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17713&postcount=8) whereby I swapped out my eVGA 8800 GTS SLi cards for 2 shiny new GTX 260 (also eVGA) in SLi. On Thursday, I was back up and running with Linux and WinXP 64 with the new configuration. On Friday, I put it through its paces with a few hours of Crysis with everything on High (no DX10 in WinXP...) and 16xQ AA turned on. It was BEAUTIFUL and still averaged more than 25 fps. :banana: I had also enabled SpeedStep in my BIOS since I figured if the GTX 260s were going to throttle back when not in use, I might as well do that with my cores, right?

After cooking my GPUs for a few hours, I turned it off to go to bed and when I tried to turn it on this evening, it only powered on for 2-3 seconds and then shut down. WTF?!?!? I've tried resetting the CMOS and pulling the GTX cards out but my machine just doesn't want to POST. The crazy thing is that it was working great until I powered it off for the night. So... the question now is to determine whodunnit...

- Was it the GTX twins with thermal expansion? One of the cards reportedly hit 92C during my Crysis bender...

- Was the PSU cracking under the needs of the new GPUs?

- Was it the CPU borking out after I enabled SpeedStep?

The problem, of course, is that while I don't know the culprit, I also don't know the victim! I don't know what actually died.

Anybody have any similar issues with machines not POSTing like this? Does this sound like a CPU issue? Or maybe it's a bad mobo now? Whaddya think?

[HTM|Assraker]

I have a power supply checker for diagnostics.

http://www.directron.com/ps124.html

Unless you have a good bit of electrical knowledge as well as a decent volt meter, I recommend getting one.

There are 3 possibilities here:
CPU is cooked
PS is cooked
MB is cooked. <<least likely

If you have a spare PS you can swap it out to do a simple check, that would at least rule out the PS if you do not have a diagnostic tool.

[HTM|Minion]

Maybe this will help? I'd be more helpful if I wasn't falling asleep. :)-

http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/manual.htm

[Freak]

Read several bad reviews on the psu,lasting only 2-4 months.

[HTM~CheeZmonZter]

I have one of those PSU testers, They are awesome, Have been really happy with the purchase, Mine came from Frozen CPU, but I'm sure that they're all the same testers repackaged

My thoughts would be the PSU 1st as well......

[HTM|Minion]

Yes, it seems quality power supplies are getting harder and harder to find. Even the brands that used to be trustworthy have seen a dip in quality the last few years. I think it's due to the demand for higher wattage needs, almost as if they have increased power output without revising the heat dissipation and circuitry to handle the extra load.

[HTM~CheeZmonZter]

http://www.pcpower.com/index.html

They Use em in the Maximum PC computers, nothing else.....

[HTM|Assraker]

Enermax, ftw... Good rule of thumb, if it weighs like a brick, it should have decent heat dissipation.

[HTM~ZenEye]

This Tagan ITZ 800w seems to power my crossfire nicely :)

[Freak]

Quality control with stringent testing would be nice,especially with the complaints the 12v rail are coming in closer to 10v.

[Coyote]

Thanks for the link to the tester, Assraker! I'm going to order one ASAP and have it shipped overnight. EDIT: WHOAH... never mind. I'm not THAT eager to diagnose the problem that I'm willing to spend $60-70 on this tester.

You guys are right about the trying to find a good PSU. No matter what PSU I look at, I can find reviews that it's a-okay and reviews that it bricks itself. The thing has been rock solid on my older 8800 GTS setup for almost a year. So that suggests that PSUs are only good until around 70% capacity or something after which it's a game of Russian Roulette to see if it croaks.

I'll report as soon as I get the tester. Gawd, this could NOT have come at a worse time. I've got a huge project deliverable this week and next and this machine was going to be where I was going to do my 3D renderings when I was home. I guess I'll be staying a lot more at work for the next few weeks.

[HTM~Night_Ranger]

I just went through a similar problem last week. I thought the psu was giving up on me a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden nothing. Unplugged the pc for about 15 mins and it fired back up and ran fine, for awhile- then nothing, no case fans, no lights, nothing.

So, I ordered a 1kw quad rail from Antec. Installed it and fired it up and it ran, but I noticed the 120 mm case fan wasn't turning. Before I could shut it down, it quit on me and would not start back up. I checked the fan and sure enough the bearings had died. I replaced the 120 mm fan with a spare 80 mm fan just long enough to verify the source of the problem and it ran fine. The Tagan psu (as well as the Antec) has an over current and over voltage protection circuit and on the initial load of the failed case fan the psu shut itself down.

I brought my Fluke meter home from work, but I haven't verified that the Tagan psu wasn't damaged yet. I hope to do that in the next day or so.

[HTM~CheeZmonZter]

http://www.frozencpu.com/search.html?mv_profile=keyword_search&mv_session_id=DuSdMWxC&searchspec=psu+tester&go.x=0&go.y=0


This one isn't that much.......

[Coyote]

I ordered one with a LCD display. I just didn't want to pay $40-$50 just for overnight shipping. I'll get it by the end of the week I think.

[Coyote]

Okay! Let the saga begin. First, up, let's test the PSU:

I got a Rexus PST-3 Digital power supply tester with LCD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899705003

today and plugged it in. At first glance, everything read just fine:

+5V : 5.1V
+12V1 : 12.2V
+3.3V : 3.3V
-12V : 12.0V
+12V2 : 12.2V
5VSB : 5.1V
PG 390ms

Alright... so I then tested each and every one of my cables. Al of the 12V lines (PCI-e) work fine. When I plugged in the SATA and IDE/floppy connectors, I never see the 5V LED light up. However, when I shove my multimeter into the plug directly, I see that there's 5V registering. So I'm kind of suspecting the 5V LED on the tester... it flashes on and off sometimes when I plug in a connector, but it is never on for more than an instant. I read a review on newegg saying that some guy encountered this problem with a different PSU and that it was okay on his machine.

Huh...

[HTM|Minion]

Don't forget that you can have a correct voltage reading but have a low amperage output, does the tester simulate load on the line?

[Coyote]

No clue. The manual sucks and the home page isn't that helpful...

http://www.rexususa.com/PSU/11903.html

Crap, the only way I'm going to know for sure is if I go out and buy another comparable PSU at this point...

[Coyote]

Anyway, the last thing I did was to disconnect everything from the mobo, remove the mobo from its case, and try to power it using only the ATX and 12V connector. No change. Tried it with only 1 stick of RAM. No change.

One fun thing though was that I tried booting it with NO RAM installed. This time it stayed powered on and just beeped at me until I turned it off. The LED display on the i680 showed an 'fb' code which wasn't even in the manual. ::sigh:: What does _that_ mean?

(Look ma, an Armor doing a headstand!!!)
http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/3937/armorheadstandyu3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Coyote]

(Oh boy, triple post!)

Actually, I just remembered that the manual said that the tester should NOT be left plugged into the PSU as it will overheat. I'm guessing that there is SOME load there...

[HTM|Minion]

Sounds like you have it narrowed down to the mobo or the psu, I'd put money one the psu, but last time I did that ZenzEye had to get another mobo...

[Coyote]

My bet is the mobo but then who knows? I've pinged eVGA support with the info and asked them about RMA'ing the board. If it doesn't work then I'll get a new PSU...

[HTM~Night_Ranger]

I don't know about the *fb* error code, since I've never used that unit.
The constant beeping with the ram removed is a hard memory error during post. Since the ram is tested early in post it would seem to indicate the component failure is on the mobo. But, that doesn't exactly explain the lack of power to all the fans.... unless the fans are plugged into the mobo instead of the 12vdc of the psu. hmmmmm

Just thinking out loud, so to speak.

A question, did the cpu fan run without the ram installed?

[Coyote]

Yeah. The cpu fan ran in all instances of testing.

[HTM~olde_tymer]

Sounds like a good time to build a new pc.:)

[Coyote]

Lordy I hope not. This thing ain't even a year old. There should be a LOT of life left in it especially once I get those GTX 260s back in there.

We'll see what happens as I swap out components. I've applied for an RMA on the mobo. Once I get the new one, I'm going to redo the thermal compound on EVERYTHING in there since the default is to use kinda crappy stuff on it I've heard. Anyway, hopefully it's just the mobo and I'll be done with it.

[HTM~olde_tymer]

Was just kidding you,but yeah,it sux having it go down,espefially when it's that new of a build.I've had my share of problems that have made me want to take a baseball bat to mine.

[Coyote]

My mobo is making its way across the country now. ::sniff::

I took opportunity to revisit how I string cables through my case. I found a big pack of black zip ties at Home Depot and started making cable bundles that I'll be attaching to the case at various points. When I do get this thing back together the airflow should be a lot better.

One of the problems that I had with cables is that all of my fans come with those really big chunky 4-pin molex connectors that just piled up at the bottom of my case. I'd been looking for a clean way to organize them when I first built the box but didn't have any luck. Then recently, I found this:

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Power/misc/a2359/a2359.asp

Apparently there are a few companies that make these things now for the sake of organizing one's power cables.

[Coyote]

Flying horse dung.

I got my new mobo from eVGA and installed it this weekend. I got it to POST maybe 3-4 times. I then started to reconnect my video cards and it now gets stuck at dreaded nVIDIA "--" code on the on-board LED. I've rambled on at great length about this on the eVGA forums and have tried a number of different so-called "tried-and-true suggestions" and will RMA the board again.

This time, the PSU gets RMA'd with it. I'm going to take my video cards into work and test them to make sure they didn't fry as well... !@#$%!@#$%!@#%!@#$%

[HTM~olde_tymer]

Dude,that sucks.

[HTM~Night_Ranger]

Dude,that sucks.

yeah, big time.

[Coyote]

eVGA just authorized my RMA for the motherboard. It gets UPS'd back tomorrow. I'm still waiting on the PSU RMA authorization...

[Coyote]

There's a happy ending here.

The mighty blue flashlight is back up and running.

I believe that my case was shorting out my motherboard. It's a Thermaltake Armor and the little tabs set up for using the BTX form factor were probably most likely hitting some contacts on the back of the mobo. Installing the heavier GTX 260 video cards cause the board to flex I believe. What a pain. At least it's something I can fix with several layers of electrical tape. :p TT cases are pretty but you gotta watch out. They'll turn on you as soon as look at you.

I finally fired up UT2004 again for the first time in months this weekend. Man, I can't believe how much fun it still is. I spent some good quality late night gaming time on Nachos&Beer AS and )o( ONS.

[Freak]

Why not join us on Sanctuary,somebody is on every night.:)

[HTM~Par]

Glad to see you are back up and running, Coyote!

[Coyote]

Why not join us on Sanctuary,somebody is on every night.:)

I'm on sporadically these days but have more time on the weekends. When do you all usually get on the server? Also, do you use TS? I see the TS display on the main HTM page but nobody's there usually.

[HTM|Minion]

Sanctuary usually has players from 5-8 PM or so. As far as TS, we don't use it all the time but if someone joins you'll usually end up with a few on there.

[Lagger]

hey i get the same prob on my dell xps 720 when overclookering it some time it dont come back on so what i do is reset the bios

i run a

6600q

8gb of ram

500gb

and to sli 8800gtxs

what motherboard do you run NVIDIA nForce 680i ? if so that the same one of me 2

[Lagger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaKj6uRLSM&feature=PlayList&p=768EEE3485A7A8FF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLaoajhiN_k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exU85jk9UyM&feature=related

[Coyote]

Hi Lagger, yeah, trying to reset the BIOS was the first thing I did. Unfortunately, the board was pretty much dead and nothing I could do could resurrect it (both of them actually).

The machine is perfectly fine now and I've even OC'd it a few times without problems (save for heat so I got a bigger HS).