Pls Help -- Outta Ideas

jpom

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12 Oct 2004
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I think this ones a doozy but i could be wrong. A little background, I have 2 computers running off of two power bars/surge protectors off of 2 different outlets but on the same circut in my house. I turned off my FTP server today and noticed something strange, the red power light would not go off. I didn't think much about it because the machine is in rought shape most of the leds don't work so I was kind of like whatever, it was still running fine.

So later on I turned off my other machine, my main machine, and same thing. I have two big blue power leds on the front and they would not go off. I turned the switch on the back of the PSU off, no joy, I unplugged the computer, nothing, finally I unplugged the PSU from the mobo and they went off, plug the mobo back in and they come back on. Ok I coule live with that since my computers are on almost 24/7 but now the thing won't boot up at all. The lights are on but nobody's home. No fans nothing. I've unplugged everything except the CPU fan and the mobo and still nothing, i tried a different power supply and the lights don't come on but when I plug the PSU into the mobo the PSU's fan comes on even though it's not plugged into the wall, as soon as i unplug it from the mobo the fan stops, but that only happens on this spare psu.

My system is as follows, AMD Athlon 3000XP+, 1024 Ram pc3200 (running at 333 though) 2 HDDs (1 removable and 1 internal) DVD Writer, CD Writer, 3 fans 1 front/1 rear 120mm and 1 side 80 mm (the front and side have LEDs) a couple 30CM UV lights. All running off of an OCZ Modstream 520w quasi-modular PSU.

At first I thought it was a PSU problem, the PSU is still new and I've heard godd reviews on it, but it happens. But now that I've tried a second PSU I'm starting to think motherboard.

So any theorys, ideas, crazy or otherwise. Right now I'm up for anything, if it turns out to be the mobo then it might be a good excuse to upgrade to an AMD64 system, but I also have to take my car in for repairs monday so if I can fix this without spending money that would make my month.

I don't know if both computers having the same initial "symptom" (power light staying on) was just a coincidence or what, but my other computer is still running so maybe it was. All I know is that right now I am out of theories.

TIA everyone
James
 
uhm. stupid idea but attach the power switch on the case to the motherboard and turn it on :D

you couls also jam a screwdriver across the capacitors in the psu and discharge them (with a bang).

also check you dont have any metal fragments or other conductive material shorting things out.
 
Are you using a KVM switch to run both computers off one monitor/keyboard/mouse?

The network link should not be causing it, but could.

Same with any USB ties between the machines.
 
It works, It works. And no Lord I didn't forget to connect anything :), although I've been there and done that before at work, it was my first week and lets just say I could see the boss was re-evaluating his employee choices.

Lee you hit it on the head, it was a USB tie between the machines, disconnected it and good to go.

Thanks kindly guys, I appreciate the help.
 
jpom said:
I've unplugged everything except the CPU fan and the mobo and still nothing, i tried a different power supply and the lights don't come on but when I plug the PSU into the mobo the PSU's fan comes on even though it's not plugged into the wall, as soon as i unplug it from the mobo the fan stops, but that only happens on this spare psu.
James

That is weird.
 
Well i think I know what was happening now, it was stupid thing I did though. Baiscally I have a 2.5" HDD in an external case, the case came with a USB cable that has 3 ends, it has the mini-usb connecter to plug into the hdd, it has the regular usb connector for power/data connection to the computer and then becasue the drive is BUS powered it has a second regular USB connector that is only for power from a seperate usb port.

Well the computer I was using it on only has 1 USB port open, usually when using desktops you don't have to use the extra power connector that is more for laptops that can't supply enough power through 1 USB port. But I have found the hard way that if the drive doesn't get enough power then you can easily lose everything on it so I always plugg in both.

Since the computer only had 1 USB port I figured I would plug the data into that and then plug the extra power connector into my other computer, well it worked fine as long as the hard drive was pluged in and/or both computers were on, the problem was when I had one computer turned off and had unplugged the cable from the hdd but not the computers. My guess is that the USB cable was transferring power between the 2 computers and that's what was shorting it out, thats why LED's would still light up when I had un-plugged the computer. I imagine the power transfer was minimal and if the HDD had been plugged in it would have been drawing the power and I would not have had this problem, but the hdd was not plugged in and the power wanted to go somewhere.

Anyways that's my guess as to what happened, stupid thing to do I know, but I would have never thought of it.

James
 
Glad you figuraed it out. I had a power problem a while back, but mine is a bit different. So I post this as a warning. One of my computers, if you turn it off (front power button or shutdown through windows) the power led stays on, so I turned off the power supply switch, still no change. I unpluged the entire computer from the surge protector and the well outlet. Still, NO Change! I was like WTH! I left it like this for several hours and still no change, damn lite was still lit. So I unpluged the PSU from the motherboard, and lite went out.

So I plugged the PSU back into the motherboard, pluged everthing back in .........nothing. Wouldn't power up at all, did the usual, strip down to bare minimum, check god hell and everything, no joy.

Well to make the long story short, I fried the mobo when I reconnected the PSU to the mobo. My PSU held such a large charge in the capacitors that it was enough to mess up the mobo. (That will teach me for buying a no name brand PSU). So just a word or caution on that front.
 
Maveric169 said:
Well to make the long story short, I fried the mobo when I reconnected the PSU to the mobo. My PSU held such a large charge in the capacitors that it was enough to mess up the mobo. (That will teach me for buying a no name brand PSU). So just a word or caution on that front.

That was my worry too, I thought maybe that the PSU was holding some sort of charge and that it would fry something. But when I plugged in my spare PSU to the mobo (but not into the wall) and the fan in the psu started spinning i was confused big time.

James
 

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