Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, SpotTheCat, Nemesis
OldBob wrote:It doesn't really work like that. The signal to say "run" is the power switch; there's no communication beyond that. The rationale here is that the PSU isn't completely dead, but as the various components come to life and draw power, the PSU falls over and gives up. Of course that's not the only possibility, and it is possible for a bad motherboard to give these symptoms, but swapping out the PSU is easy and it's worthwhile having a known good spare around anyway.If things run for a second, including the PSU fan, wouldn't that indicate that the MB wasn't sending the right signal to the PSU (such as saying RUN)?
OldBob wrote:That's a scarier thought. If you haven't already, can you make a backup before you turn off your computer? Even if it's only your most important data on a 4GB usb drive.Is it possible that one of the drives was 'stuck,' and was jarred free when I moved the box?
OldBob wrote:Antec Sonata case with Antec power supply. ASUS MB. Purchased in 2005. System normally on 24/7. Away for a week, shut system down and power switch on surge protector/strip turned off but remained plugged into household wiring. Reasonable chance of surge due to lightening storm and power flickers (same storm).
OldBob wrote:Right now it's running again and I'm set to keep it backed up (externally) automatically. As long as it keeps running I'll ignore the problems. ... I almost torched the whole thing about three years ago (shorted the PSU to ground)
westom wrote:I see nothing in your posted that even imply a defective hard drive.
westom wrote:Shorting a power supply to ground must not cause PSU failure. In fact, Intel specs define how thick (or thicker) a wire must be to short that supply - and have no damage. A test that every supply - even those in the original IBM PC - must pass.
just brew it! wrote:I agree in theory; but in practice this is overly optimistic, especially when dealing with cheap PSUs. I have seen PSUs fail catastrophically when one of the rails is shorted or overloaded.
just brew it! wrote:Again, theory vs. practice.
OldBob wrote:This morning similar problem: a second of power then it quit. It would only do that much if I unplugged it AND held the on/off switch and reset buttons in for about 20 seconds.