Hello,
I have an old computer that stopped powering on. It may be the motherboard is no good but I thought I’d check here first.
Asus Z79i Motherboard
i5 fourth gen CPU if I remember correctly.
It was working and then one day it stopped powering on. I’ve ruled out the power supply as I can get it to power on by itself.
When the motherboard is plugged into the power supply the motherboard lights turn on and the chipset gets warm.
I’ve tried shorting the power switch pins but that does nothing. When it is attached to the case power button the fans sometimes power on for about half a second but immediately turn off.
Any troubleshooting tips appreciated or confirmation/likelihood of dead parts too.
Thank you.
Usually the RAM sticks die out first, so try to move them around the slot. If you have 2 sticks installed try to remove one of them and/or move it around.
Next IIRC is one of the capacitors in the mobo itself, usually the VRM capacitors. But that fails more gracefully and usually is not an all or nothing failure. Also it is not servicable at the normie level.
CPUs are the one of the last to die and they are the ones that flood the 2nd hand market the longest. But some do fail.
With the information provided it could still be any components’ fault.
I don’t trust the power supply unless it successfully started another motherboard. Until then it’s my prime suspect.
Probably the best case (from your point of view) could be a failure of the power button. (don’t laugh actually happened to me once).
What’s the exact motherboard model? ASUS has made several mobos with Z79i. Depending on the model the mobo helps in case it cannot boot by indicating issues. That can be LEDs or an error code or beeps or something.
Sorry for the delay in response.
I don’t get any beeps when trying to use the power switch or short the power switch pins. It doesn’t look like it’s even getting to POST.
I tried the one stick vs two sticks of RAM and it didn’t change anything.
That’s very unsatisfying as it doesn’t provide a lot of data.
I see two potential culprits:
The power supply. Already mentioned above. You should find a way to validate it’s working. I understand your limitations.
The motherboard. If a motherboard doesn’t even beep powered by a good power supply, there is likely some visible damage. Look for any component given up “magic smoke”.
Yeah, thanks for your help in narrowing it down. I’ll try find a way to test out the components individually but at this point I may just call it a loss and move on with my life
