raymac46 Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Last night my wife switched off our main desktop PC and then we had to turn it on again to order some stuff online for my daughter. Of course the PC failed on the spot. The fans would start up and then stop in about 5 seconds. No POST at all. I disconnected the whole system and took the box downstairs to my workroom. After blowing out the dirt I reseated the memory. I could get the thing to boot if I let it cool down but after running a bit, then shutting down I was back to the same problem. I suspected a bad PSU so I pulled out my old spare Cooler Master box and connected it to the mobo. Instant success! This PSU is non modular and pretty old but it'll have to do until I get a new one from Amazon. No computer shops open around here during the COVID-19 lockdown. Of course all my electrical work blew up my BIOS so I had to go into setup and reconfigure everything. But it seems to be OK now. I just hope my old PSU holds out. BTW my failed power supply was an EVGA - rather disappointing. Out of warranty of course. So I'm going with Corsair as a replacement. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 The most important talent a troubleshooter needs to be successful at any repair of any device is to NOT over think/complicate the problem. ALWAYS check the simple stuff first. You did a fine job of this, Ray. PSU would have been my first choice, also. Good on you! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 30, 2020 Author Share Posted March 30, 2020 I hate these problems where where was no grinding noise, no hum, no smoke - just intermittent failure. It was worse because occasionally it would start up normally. A few weeks ago I was getting some odd beeping when I started up, but I thought it was just a poorly seated RAM module. Probably this was an early warning that all was not well with the power supply. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Intermittents are always the worst. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 30, 2020 Author Share Posted March 30, 2020 So I found out that my choice of power supply was from a great brand (EVGA) that decided to market a "value" line. It wasn't as good as advertised, although it did make it past the 3 year warranty period. I have a Corsair (same line as I just purchased) that is going strong 6 years later so I hope this new one will do likewise. I'm not about to put a $250 PSU in a junker computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Well, whatever you plan to do concerning replacing necessary components in your PCs, I would suggest that you DO IT NOW! The reason being that the shelves may be a bit bare and prices a bit high once product production and imports slow-downs from China (and other places in Asia/India, etc.) begin to affect the world markets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 (edited) Power supply on the way. The old non modular one is still working but I really want to have it as a spare/tester. It saved me a lot of grief when the EVGA power supply caved. Edited March 31, 2020 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 2, 2020 Author Share Posted April 2, 2020 New power supply arrived yesterday. Installed, tested and working. PC reconnected to peripherals and Internet. It's all good. 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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