Thought it was a PSU issue, could it still be?

[wordsfrommike]

Two weeks ago, my desktop pc just died on me. Lost all power and wouldn't start. After 10/15 minutes it turned on but nothing would work that was plugged into the pc.

No monitor, no mouse/keyboard etc.

 

 

So i asked around and was told it's more than likely a problem with the power supply. So i went out today and replaced it, came home plugged it in and switched it on.

 

 

The end result...perhaps 5 seconds of power before death.

 

 

Playing around a little i've found that the pc will turn on and stay on if i take out the ATX12V 4 pin connector from my motherboard. It powers up, but still won't turn on my monitor, or anything plugged into the USB slots. All the fans spin, and all the right noises are made but that's it.

 

 

HELP ME!

Cheers!

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

That sounds rather bad, if the original power supply has definitely failed, quite often they take the motherboard out as well when they go.

First, did this computer ever give a single beep at start up? some do, some don't but if it did, are there any beeps now?

Here is a check if it did beep before, Turn off at the mains, then disconnect all cables to hard drive, disk drive, keyboard, mouse, leave that four pin plug out, and just leave the twenty or twenty four pin power connector to the motherboard, nothing else connected except the start button, power back on and press the start button, Any beeps now?

 

Nev.

[wordsfrommike]

This is going to sounds really unhelpful but i can't 100% remember if it beeped before. However i'm 95% sure that it never did.

 

Is there any other way to check if it's the motherboard?

 

Thanks for your suggestions though, anymore help would be appreciated!

[Plastic Nev]

A great shame that as it makes it a little more difficult to decide what could be at fault. You could try leaving all connected except the CD/DVD drives, including floppy if there is one, and try again.

If no joy from that, I am a little stuck as to what to suggest next as it could be a few things at fault, including the mother board itself.

I hope someone else has an idea where to look next.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

You have a new PSU so leave that in place.

 

Switch off at the wall but leave the plug in to maintain the earth connection to the motherboard.

 

Disconnect the printer / monitor / and any other external hardware.

 

Take all of the cards ( RAM / Sound / Video etc) off the motherboard.

 

Disconnect the power connections to the hard drive(s) and the CDROM drives

 

Disconnect the hard drive and CDROM drive data cables from the motherboard.

 

Leave only the 20 ( 4 ) way connector from the PSU connected.

 

Check inside the case to see if there is an internal speaker. If you can see one then you should get POST beeps.

Obviously if there isn't one then you will not - but there usually is a speaker.

 

Switch on.

You should get beeps. If you do this is good.

 

If you get no beeps and there is no speaker ......................do the case fans spin and stay on ?

 

Get to this stage and let us know what is happening.