DescentBB

Was playing on the computer today and suddenly the monitors went black and the pc wouldnt respond (lights in the case were on and fans were still running).
Had to hold the power button to shut if off.

I cleaned out the case (it was pretty dusty), and tried turning it back on but got the same thing:
Lights and fans power up, as does the keyboard backlight, but that's it.
As far as I can tell the fan on the PSU is still spinning, but this sounds to me like a PSU death.

I dont have access to any place that has a 750 PSU (Best Buy had a 500watt), so I'm kind of stuck. I'll have to buy one and have it shipped, but before I do I'd like to make sure (as best as I can) that it's the power supply.

Any ideas on what else it might be?


Thanks!

RM


--Edit--Nothing appears on the screen. The power buttons flash on and off, showing that it's not getting any power.
I have an extra video card, is it worth putting in to see if it works? (cant imagine that it would be the video card, as I dont hear the HD spin up at all, and there's no sound from the windows startup when I let it run)

--Edit #2--
Interestingly, my keyboard, joystick light, and throttle light all light up when I power the machine on (all fans run, all lights are on), but after a couple of minutes, the kb light, joystick light, throttle light all go off for about 10 seconds, then slowly power back up and then stay on. This has happened a couple of times.
I think it's gotta be the Power Supply....

Did you try another monitor and video card?

I have 2 monitors connected, neither powers up (tho the on/off button has a blue light that blinks, showing that it works). I havent tried putting in a new VC yet. If the VC was bad, the HD would still boot up and I'd at least hear the windows startup sound.

Nope, at least I don't think so. In the olden days the MB's used to have a piezoelectric speaker mounted on the MB, or there would be a speaker mounted inside the case that was connected to the MB and error codes would be sounded through said speaker. Not sure about nowadays, but in them days a bad or non-installed video card would be indicated by a series of beeps and the BIOS would not proceed past that point.

I've been out of the loop a while though, so I am not sure about the \"modern\" MBs.

I'll try putting in another vc just to see.
Another idea I had was to buy a 500w power supply and see if it solves the problem. I can then have a psu shipped from newegg (my corsair 750w is only 1 1/2 years old, so it should be under warranty).

Will a lower power PSU like 500w power up the system or cause any issues? It's the only PSU I can find on the island (there's a number of 400w, and only this one 500w).

Thanks for any input!

--Krom, what do you think the problem is?

If you “just toss in a VC” be sure to go into safe mode so the drivers don’t load. (unless they match)

It does sound like the video card to me, relatively easy to test if you have a spare. Just the screens blanking and then turning off abruptly doesn't sound typical of other problems. I wouldn't bother booting at all if the video card swap gets to BIOS, even if the drivers match it'll still have a different hardware ID and will require a driver reinstall to work.

Granted it could be the PSU, or it could be some other part of the system. However if it was a motherboard / CPU / RAM problem usually the system would just hard lock with the monitors and picture remaining the same. Modern motherboards, especially highend / overclocking oriented boards usually have some diagnostic features that can give you a hint about what is going wrong with the system, the manual would detail what to look for.

A 400w PSU should be sufficient to kick over a modern quad core + single GPU system barring any overclocking.

You guys were right!
I plugged in my old 260GTX (That EVGA RMA'd to me even after the warranty had run out since I didnt register it.), and it started right up. The drivers for the 460GTX work with the 260, so everything is fine.

I'm REALLY surprised that it was the video card. First off, it's brand new (only a couple months old). Second, it's not OC'd at all. Third, I never heard warning that it was too hot, or anything else. Very odd.

I'm so glad that it's not the PSU....such a pain to replace here. I'll RMA the 460 and use this 260 in the meantime.

Thanks again for taking the time to post everyone!
I sure appreciate your input and help.

RM

probably bad straight from the factory. Happens every once in a while.

I had an expensive HP laptop that waited until right after the warranty ran out to have the built-on-the-motherboard GPU take a flying crap and die! Being built on the motherboard meant NO swapping out or fixie, fixie.

Actually my GTX 460 glitches a bit, usually takes close to a week of up time before it happens but my screen will corrupt on both monitors and 3d/cuda apps cause the system to hard lock after a few seconds, otherwise it runs for a few minutes (more than enough time to shut down normally). If I reboot before the system locks the display will return to corruption as soon as it is back in windows with the driver loaded, I have to do a complete power cycle before it returns to normal again.

I've been on and off looking for a test or benchmark or something that can set it off more reliably, but so far every torture test / furmark / memory test / benchmark / game I throw at it works perfectly. Performance and temps are all normal, it idles cooler than my CPU half the time and even the hottest torture test only got it to 74C. I'm positive its defective but it seems the only thing that sets it off is time and I hate sending parts in on warranty when it takes upwards of a week to get any sort of glitch out of it. Once I can find something that sets it off reliably, I'm putting my old card in and RMAing it immediately with instructions.

Given the nature of the 460 and how some of its cuda cores are disabled (the full chip is 384 cores, the 460 has 352 enabled) it wouldn't surprise me if a larger than normal number of defects have slipped through manufacturing.

tunnelcat wrote:I had an expensive HP laptop that waited until right after the warranty ran out to have the built-on-the-motherboard GPU take a flying crap and die! Being built on the motherboard meant NO swapping out or fixie, fixie.

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