Hello to the helpful community of the tek syndicate forum.
I know it is very tiresome to help someone troubleshoot their pc but i'm out of ideas.
A few days ago we had an electrical short in some parts of our apartment, my room was one of those. I was doing work on my computer when suddenly it shut off completly, but the lights in my room were still on. I wasn't assuming that anything to bad had happend, thats why I didn't unplug the machine from the wall outlet. I realised something was amiss when I tried to power it back on.
The fans and hdd spin but it doesn't post.
What I tried:
I tried resetting the bios, to no affect I checked for loose components but I don't find any problem I changed the ram modules around and tried to boot with only one
My pc's specs:
amd fx8350 asrock Fatal1ty 970 gaming Be quiet Pure power L8 530W crucial ballistix 2x 4gb crucial mx100 256gb WD blue 2tb
my problem is that I don't have any spare parts to exchange.
I would be very grateful if someone could help me with the troubleshooting.
Do you get any error codes when turning it on? I agree with @Streetguru. A PSU is also going to be a lot easier to swap out and test than the mobo. Was your computer plugged into a surge suppressor?
You could also buy one of those PSU testers. They're definitely cheaper than a new PSU, if you can afford it. If it turns out not to be the power supply, you have a new tool. If it is, well, you still have a new tool at your disposal. I'm getting a sense that money is a problem here though.
Thanks to both of you for the fast reply. I can ask about a powersupply when i buy a mobo speaker, that should help to get me an error code at least shouldn't it? And yes I would prefer to make sure that it isn't the PSU without buying a tester.
I know I should've, but it was fairly new when I bought it and even had good reviews. If it's the board thats dead I'll get something nicer or even switch to Intel, we'll see.
My IT Guy friend told me to never ever use a surge protector. They are worthless. Even if you get a good one, it is only good for one zap and you can't know if it has been zapped because they keep sending power.
After you fix your PC, get a battery backup uninterruptible power supply. He suggested APC Back-UPS, TrippLite or the CyberPower I'm using now. I had a APC 750VA with 10 outlets for a long time, replaced the battery twice, but it started beeping all the time and I got the CyberPower unit. I also like how you plug the PC into the master socket and when you power down it shuts off the peripherals.
A UPS will protect your power, cable line, phone line and network line multiple times. Most of them come with monitoring software that will log if your PC has been zapped or lost power, how much power you are using and how long you can expect the PC to run on batteries. The software will also save open documents and shut down after a few minutes of running on batteries. They are expensive to get one that will handle ALL of your gear though. After I got home I discovered the new one I bought only has enough battery to run the PC in the event of power failure. All my other stuff (screen, printer, etc.) is running through the UPS's protected but not backed up sockets.
My PC cost $2000. Another $100 for peace of mind insurance is totally worth it IMHO. I know I'm not much help fixing your issue but maybe there won't be a next time.
I thought about getting a UPS. It's good to hear that they are worth it. Definitely something I'll look into after fixing my PC and getting some money .
If you don't have a mobo speaker, you could buy a POST card. This is another useful tool. It will tell you the error codes your board uses. You'll need a copy of your board's manual to be able to lookup the codes though. Shouldn't be hard, as long as you're able to access the internet, if you don't have the dead tree edition.
What are you talking about? Newer ones have indicators to show when it's not protecting anymore. Unless you mean this kind of thing is just bullshit marketing. You're right about a UPS being better though.
That's good. Definitely stay away from the cheap ones that are just power strips labeled as surge protectors. But I will admit I use those too. I have a power strip plugged into my UPS for my speakers and modem that aren't mission critical.
I was just repeating what my "expert" (manager of IT at Black & Decker) told me a while ago so it might be better now.
Must've been a long time ago then. I never use those cheap $5 ones. You get what you pay for...to a certain limit. The one I have right now only cost about $20. They also claim to do things that you could only get with a UPS before, such as voltage regulation and master device sensing. Mine screws up if you have things with their own usage detection system though, so those have to be put on "always on" outlets. Your post has piqued my interest, and I'm researching whether they actually work or not now. There are also whole house surge suppressors that you can have installed before the breaker box.
But what if your house gets hit by lightning and it goes straight through the wires w/o ever passing through the breakers? That sounds really expensive too, more of an enterprise solution. Even at Black & Decker where the building was probably protected, the IT Guy installed a small UPS under every single desk. I think I would rather have multiple UPS's all over my house instead of relying on a big whole house unit.
It's not meant to be the sole method of protection. It won't protect you from that, but if it comes through the main, it will. They don't have to cost that much money. Installation of course, is going to cost you whatever an electrician will charge. It's just another layer. Redundancy is key.
Yes could be that it is the GPU. I asked a friend today if I could maybe borrow his old 5450 for a bit to see if that's the problem. I didn't notice anything strange about my GPU, except it not outputting any video signal.