Question Everything work but it doesn't work ?

[emjay.lee]

So here is the problem. Every component works. Basically the cpu fan stopped working and I bought a new one, a be quiet rock. After I installed it the mobo started misbehaving. I ended up buying a new cpu, a new mobo and a new gpu (msi 570, ryzen 7 1700 and msi 1030 gpu). Not a gamer btw. The old mobo/cpu had no handshake to the monitor and then after shutting it down with the power button a couple of a times it just stopped working completely. Put it together, no handshake.

Now for the problem. I have an old psu and chassi (front panel were wonky on the other chassi). I used that to try component singly and together. The cpu works, the ram works, the psu works - what I did was putting the new mobo/cpu onto the psu. The mobo/cpu/ram works with the 550 and the 650 psu and the old chassi. Bingo! Monitor works - I knew hdmi works btw since I tried it out on a chromebook. I also know vga works since I'm using an ancient pc as the backup via vga. But putting it together in the old chassi, while waiting for a new - everything that worked when I breadboxed the mobo with everything on it, doesn't any more. I'm kinda stumped because once again I get the no signal.

Everything works, but it refuses to work. Suggestions? It's driving me nuts.

 

[Aeacus]

But putting it together in the old chassi

Old PC case may have a protrusion in the wrong spot, connecting to the back of the MoBo and at one of the hundreds of solder points, shorting out MoBo (or there is a loose screw between MoBo and PC case panel), hence why PC won't work inside the PC case.

Take out the setup from the PC case and breadboard it again. If it works, great. Don't put it back to old PC case.
If it does not work anymore, then something got dislodged or even fried, between the point of your last successful breadboarding and putting the PC into the old case, where you powered it on again.

and I bought a new one, a be quiet rock. After I installed it the mobo started misbehaving. I ended up buying a new cpu, a new mobo and a new gpu

Regarding this. MoBo may start to "misbehave" when you over tighten the CPU cooler mounting screws. E.g loss of RAM (MoBo can't detect RAM sticks), is very common symptom of too much pressure on CPU (over tightened CPU cooler screws). So, with this, you may not have needed to buy new parts at all.

 

[emjay.lee]

I am at my wits end. By now:

Switched two ryzen, 2 amd mobo, one out of the box. Three fans, two psu, in two chassin. In all combinations. I tried to breadbox again which worked gloriously for a short space in time but no go this time. The disease has now spread to an old intel board I had lying around and powered up just to check what works and not.

Exactly the same problem (including the intel) PC powers up, fans spins, mobo either goes all leddy or there is a green/red button on amd and intel lit. However, no beeping or peripherals (as in keyboard and mouse) turning on. Much less the monitor.

I'm ordering a new chassi, but somehow I doubt that will solve anything.

Interestingly when the RAM on the old intel was not seated correctly I got the three fast beeps. So obviously it notices something.

Help, help, help? I'm soon ready for the loony bin.

 

[Darkbreeze]

What are the exact model numbers of the two power supplies you are using and how old are they? As in, how long have they been in service that you know of?

 

[emjay.lee]

What are the exact model numbers of the two power supplies you are using and how old are they? As in, how long have they been in service that you know of?

Both Corsair (both bought new) one, maybe ten years, the other five or so max. Only used by me at home.

Corsair 430 model 75-001666
Corsair 650 model RPS0029

But how likely is it that both psu would experience the exact same problem at the exact same time? It did work once, gloriously. And now it doesn't.

 

[Aeacus]

Corsair 430 model 75-001666

Corsair CX-430 with green label - low quality PSU.

Corsair 650 model RPS0029

Corsair CX-650m, at best, mediocre quality PSU but not enough quality to power dedicated GPU. Only good for office PC, without dedicated GPU.

But how likely is it that both psu would experience the exact same problem at the exact same time? It did work once, gloriously. And now it doesn't.

How likely? Quite a bit, since PSUs you have, are poor ones, with lot of service live (5 years and 10 years). Now, if you would have good/great quality PSUs (e.g Corsair RM/RMi/RMx or Seasonic Focus/PRIME) , then this happening would be extremely rare.

Though, it may or may not be PSU issue, but what i suspect is ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge), that killed your hardware. That would explain why it worked when you initially breadboarded it, but not anymore when put into case, or after, when taking it out again to breadboard again.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I seriously doubt ESD has killed two motherboards, or CPUs, or whatever. In all my years of building systems I have never once seen ESD actually kill anything I was working on (NOT that it can't happen, but it is not nearly as common as some people would like you to believe unless you are building systems on carpet while while wearing socks with no shoes and making no effort to discharge yourself before handling parts IF you are seeing a static build up issue) and I've never worn any form of ESD strap etc.

Since we are talking about all new parts, twice, and it seems as though the only parts being reused are the power supplies, it stands to reason that there is a good chance those are the problem.

However, since you've been using various parts with various unknown other older parts, and we don't know if anything "older" had problems that could have damaged something else, it's very hard to say. For example, with all these Ryzen systems, and with the Intel system, have you been attempting to use the same memory modules? What are the exact specifications for the older Intel system and what parts did you attempt to use with that? You have to understand, it's not that I think you don't know what you are doing, but if you'd seen how many times we've seen people try to slap parts together that are not compatible or even from the same generations, and then wonder why things get damaged or don't work, you'd have a heart attack.

 

[emjay.lee]

The intel and amd haven't overlapped at all apart from being hooked up to the same psu. And has always worked until now.

Everything worked until I bought a new cpu fan (be quiet!) that's when everything went to hell in a hand basket. And continued with both a new mobo, cpu and ram. Same problem with everything including the intel now. Always grounded btw.

Edit: Same corsair vengeance ram stick.

 

[Aeacus]

Everything worked until I bought a new cpu fan (be quiet!) that's when everything went to hell in a hand basket.

That CPU cooler has heatsink, mounting hardware and fan. It is as simple as it gets.

Now, what could've happened, is that you over tightened the cooler mounting screws, putting way too much pressure on CPU and CPU socket. <- When this happens, you can bend or even break CPU pins / CPU socket pins, which will render the CPU/MoBo dead (depending which part has the pins). AMD has their pins on CPU, while Intel has their pins in CPU socket, on MoBo.

To check that, unmount the cooler and CPU and look very closely if any of the pins are bent/broken, while making sure nothing else gets into the pins/socket.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So you have ONE stick of memory that you've been trying to use for all these systems that seem to not work? Just one? Not two in a kit? I think you need to find another stick of memory and try that to see if perhaps the memory is the problem. And you are certain your "old Intel" system uses the same type of memory as your "newer" Ryzen systems? Because unless your Intel system is 6th Gen or newer, using DDR4, then the memory from your Ryzen systems won't work with it as anything older than 6Th Gen (Skylake) would need DDR3.

 

[emjay.lee]

Nono, I have four sticks of RAM (ddr4), bought in packages of two. But I used one and switched them one after another to see if there was a difference on the AMD mobo.

And yes, I suspect that I might have damaged the older ryzen cpu because of the new fan, that's why I bought a new cpu and mobo and gpu. Put in the stock amd cooler (screws) so as to fiddle around as little as possible

The intel (ddr2) has absolutely nothing to do with the amd. But was purely a lab rat. It's an ancient thing I have lying around that I decided to only breadboard to the same psu (x2) just to check if a previously working system would still be viable. I have not touched the cpu or fan or ram in the intel at all since I changed to AMD. I suspected actually that it would be dead as it's been lying around in, shall we say, less than optimal conditions. So what's so puzzling is that it acts the exact same way. Fans spins up, mobo lights up, but no beep (no that's not true, it beeped when the ram was lose) but when I slotted it into place properly, crickets.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, so if a completely separate system acts exactly the same way, and the only shared component is the power supply, then either you have a problem with the power supply, or both power supplies, or there is a problem with the outlet or power strip that you are using. And if you are using a power strip, you shouldn't be. Eliminate it. Your power supply should be plugged either directly into the wall socket OR into a UPS battery backup unless you have a high end industrial surge protector and almost no regular user has one of those.

 

[emjay.lee]

Interesting, I have always used a power strip, but will try it with both the 450 and the 650. Shall try the ancient intel breadboard tonight. Do you know how pissed off I'll be after all the expense if the only problem is that I had plugged it into a power strip.

I wish I could borrow a psu but don't know anyone who has one lying around. So the problem may be that despite it turning on there is not enough juice to power up properly?

And if it doesn't work. I guess the only solution is buying a new psu, and if that doesn't work. Lie down on the floor and kick my legs and scream.

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's not that using a power strip can't work, it's that they are NOTORIOUS for both going bad and for the fact that 99.9% of them don't actually "protect" you from anything. The MOVs in them are useless against anything that will actually normally be likely to cause damage to your system in such a way that the built in protections of the power supply and motherboard can't protect against them. That's not to say I don't recommend using a surge protector, but few people are willing to pay the expense of a quality one and by quality I sure as hell don't mean anything sold by Monster, Belkin, Lowe's, Walmart, Amazon essentials, the dollar store, etc.

Here is my spiel on surge protectors, just in case you are willing to invest in one that is worth having.

Years of experience using PC systems and having to diagnose bushels full of issues where a high number of them ended up being faults with the circuitry inside the power strips. Primarily, cheap box store models but also a good number of supposedly premium power strip "surge protectors" that don't actually protect you from anything other than your own fear of what might happen if you actually end up needing a surge protector. A false sense of security.


Most people buy and use power strips because they THINK that the fact it says surge protector means something. Usually, it doesn't. This is one of my favorite quotes on the subject from an electrical engineer and residential/commercial electrical journeyman I know.

Buy a good one, but understand expensive OFTEN does not equal good.


"Monster" brand are the low end junk that are sold for a premium price. Look for what us professionals use. Tripp-lite is one of my go to absolute favorites as they have a price to quality mix that is exceptional. The Belkin brand is junk as far as I am concerned as they focus on how it looks and not how it works. APC is also another one that I will trust , but they mostly cater to data centers and Corporate customers when it comes to their quality units and they DO sell some lower end products that slot into the budget market that are not the same unquestionable quality as what they sell for professional and enterprise use.


Lastly, if you really care about your electronics, get a Whole house surge suppressor installed in your electrical panel. Only a few hundred bucks and it protects everything including the overpriced LED lightbulbs that is all the rage these days.

Units you want to consider will be those sold by APC, Tripp-Lite, Eaton, Leviton, General Electric, Polyphaser, Ditek, Siemens, ABB, Square D, Intermatic, Cutler-Hammer (Eaton), and Syscom, these are the brands you can trust to have high quality internal electronics if you MUST use a power strip but even so you STILL will want to ask around about specific models OR look to professional reviews as even these big boys occasionally have a product with some glaring flaw that makes it's way into the final product and might best be avoided compared to other available models.

Do not however use a power strip thinking that it offers significant protection, because even the best of them does not, not really. Whole house protection is the only real protection from surges.


Monster and Belkin, and a few others that are commonly used, almost unilaterally use the same protections in their 45 dollar surge protector strips as what you would find in an 8 dollar Amazon or Walmart branded model. And if you ever take one of these, or any cheap box store, dollar store (Even worse than these others usually BUT occasionally about the same) or Harbor Freight power strip apart you are likely to find frayed wires, poorly soldered connections with blobs of solder nearly touching crucial and potential short circuit points, super low quality MOVs, and a ton of other indicators that no real integrity was involved in the design or manufacturer of these units.


Another factor to keep in mind is that even with some of these high quality units, any protection that MIGHT be afforded, is usually the end of that product after one shot. This, directly from the Tripp-Lite manual for the #1 selling surge protection power strip in the world.

All models feature an internal protection that will disconnect the surge-protective component at the end of its useful life but will maintain power to the load now unprotected.

I believe many models from APC and a couple of the others I listed have now incorporated designs that permanently disengage any ability of the device to deliver power once a surge or short of significant enough caliber to incur the protection has occured. That basically means once there has been a surge or short, throw the device away. Even for high end models. Only whole house protection and properly earthed circuits offer any true protection from a serious surge or direct strike from lightning somewhere close enough to affect your segment of the grid.


And whatever you do, don't EVER buy any kind of extension cord, power strip or other electronic device with slip rings.

This Power Strip Is A Fire Starter

A few weeks ago I needed a power strip in my home office. The outlet in question is located behind a filing cabinet so it would need a low profile plug. I jumped on Amazon to buy a surge suppressor…

hackaday.com

And if you buy a power supply, don't buy one based strictly on "brand". There are ZERO companies out there who sell ONLY good power supplies, and that includes Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, Antec, Be Quiet and so on. They all sell good, mediocre and crappy models so you need to base your purchase decision on an specific model, not a brand. And you should never buy any power supply that does not have a legitimate professional review based on a complete teardown and oscilloscope testing unless you absolutely have no choice because there are none available in your region or you simply cannot come up with the cash for one. (In which case I'd highly recommend WAITING to purchase one until you can)

You can find recommendations on models worth buying at the link in my signature and here:

Article - [psucultists] PSU tier list rev. 14.8 (Final Update Jul '21)

PSU Tier List 4.0 rev. 14.8 (outdated) Last Update: 12-07-2021 Legend : Gray - EoL/obsolete and/or otherwise not recommended for purchase. Green - small form-factor (gold and blue colors are disregarded due to scarcity of SFX PSUs) Gold - best units in the tier (includes requirements for blue...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Aeacus]

To add to the above;

Rather than buying surge protector, money would be much better invested into an UPS. Since besides having surge protector in them, they also have AVR and battery too, for blackouts.
With UPS brands, look towards Tripp-Lite, APC or Cyberpower. The rest are best skipped. (Personally, i have two of these in use: Cyberpower PFC Sinewave CP1300EPFCLCD.)

When looking for an UPS, there are 2 things to look out:

1. Output waveform (square wave, simulated sine wave and true/pure sine wave)
2. Design (stand-by, line-interactive and online)

From here you can read about the differences between output waveform,
link: https://www.kstar.com/indexproblem/17355.jhtml

And here are explanations about the UPS design,
link: https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1272971

Waveform and design
For PCs, line-interactive UPS would be more than enough since PSUs can easily handle the 2ms to 5ms transfer time of line-interactive UPS.
As far as output waveform goes, true/pure sine wave UPS is best used. While simulated sine wave UPSes are cheaper than true/pure sine wave UPSes, PSUs with Active PFC aren't compatible with simulated sine wave. You might get simulated sine wave UPS running with Active PFC PSU but there can be some major issues. Here's what, how and why.

How do you know which PSUs have Active PFC and which ones don't?
Simple, every PSU that has 80+ certification (e.g 80+ Bronze or 80+ Gold) has Active PFC.

What is Active PFC?
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Power_factor_correction_(PFC)_in_non-linear_loads

What can happen when using simulated sine wave UPS with Active PFC PSU?
When simulated sine wave UPS switches over to the battery power, one of 3 things can happen:

1. UPS displays error resulting PC to shut down immediately.
2. UPS shuts down resulting PC to shut down immediately.
3. UPS switches to battery power resulting PC to power off from UPS (PC stays on).

Why it happens?
Simulated sine wave UPS produces a zero output state during the phase change cycle resulting in a power “gap”. This gap may cause power interruption for active PFC PSUs when switching from AC power output to simulated sine wave output (battery mode).

What to do next?
As stated above, your PC can run off from simulated sine wave UPS but be prepared when you face issues with it. When issues do rise, your best bet would be returning the simulated sine wave UPS and getting true/pure sine wave UPS. Or you can go with true/pure sine wave UPS off the bat.

Wattage
As far as UPS wattage goes, you need to consider the power draw of your PC and monitors. Maybe speakers and wi-fi router too if you plan to plug those into the UPS as well. Though, printers, scanners and other such hardware (full list on your UPS manual) don't plug to the UPS since their startup power draw is way too much for UPS to handle and you can fry your UPS.

Taking PSU's max wattage as a baseline is good idea since it will give your UPS more headroom and you can get longer runtime out of your UPS. Also, at least one monitor is added on top of it. Depending on the monitor size, they use between 23W to 52W. For more accurate power consumption, look up it's power consumption. Wi-fi routers don't consume much power. For example, my Cisco EPC3940L consumes 12V at 3A which means 36W.

Note: The more powerful UPS you have, the longer UPS can keep your PC running before it's battery is empty.

 

[emjay.lee]

Well, eh, I live in Sweden and in a flat so I never thought much of having a surge protector tbh and will have to find the right one that is available here. Right now all I want is for the damned build to work.

I'm going to rma the gpu. Also will try to rma the mobo and put it all together again. Will I fry something if I plug in a psu that doesn't work as in not giving me enough power? I just find it strange that I can turn it on to the point that everything powers up but then nada.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you have "nada" then it "ain't powering up".

So, what is it ACTUALLY doing? By powering up do you mean you have a few lights and some fan activity, or you don't even have that? Knowing EXACTLY what happens is extremely important. And just because you DO have a few lights and some fan activity doesn't usually mean much. It can still be a bad board or bad PSU and have that. The fact that three different motherboards, three different CPUs, two different sets of memory, result in nothing, using the same power supplies, tells me it either is a problem with the power supplies or a power with the outlet.

Do you have another outlet you can try? A different cable going from the PSU to the outlet? When you changed power supplies you didn't use the same cables right? Well, I guess you couldn't have since the CX430 isn't modular.

 

[Aeacus]

Will I fry something if I plug in a psu that doesn't work as in not giving me enough power?

Faulty PSU, can and most likely will, kill any following hardware that you connect to it.

Since PSU powers everything, it is the most important component inside the PC. And why would you want to risk, new, good hardware with questionable PSU? Do you have loads of money and time to burn?

 

[emjay.lee]

Sigh, a new PSU it is. And yes, I only mean it powers up to the point that the fans spin and the mobo is lit up. What I do find strange is that when the ram on the intel board wasn't plugged in properly it happily beeped away. I did try two different cables for both PSU plugged into another outlet.

Theoretically a new working psu should turn the PC 'on' correct?

Edit: Just realised something else, the a/c cable I use to power both the 450 and the 650 is also used for the current backup computer which works without any problems whatsoever. So it can't really be the cable I presume.

Edit 2: I know, stupid question, but why does it beep when the ram was not slotted in properly if it's killed everything off more or less?

 

[Aeacus]

Theoretically a new working psu should turn the PC 'on' correct?

IF the rest of the components are sound, yes. However, at this point, i'm leaning towards dead MoBo. Since MoBos are usually the 1st to go, when PSU acts up. But every singe other component, that PSU powered, could be dead too. <- This is the magical power of PSUs, they can fry everything they are connected to, when PSU goes sky high. Hence why never cheap out on a PSU. And why PSU is the most important component inside the PC.

No other component inside the PC has such great magical powers. E.g when your RAM dies, it won't kill rest of your hardware, other than itself. Same goes to GPU, CPU, MoBo, disk drives, fans, AIO and everything else. Only PSU can kill other components.
Perhaps best part of it is, that PSU warranty will not cover any other component PSU fried. PSU warranty covers only PSU itself. So, even when your doorstep blows your PC and you RMA that junk, you still have to pay for other components you lost.

I know, stupid question, but why does it beep when the ram was not slotted in properly if it's killed everything off more or less?

Reason: POST.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-on_self-test

POST order goes more-or-less like so:

1. verify CPU registers
2. verify the integrity of the BIOS code itself
3. verify some basic components like DMA, timer, interrupt controller
4. initialize, size, and verify system main memory
5. initialize chipset
6. initialize BIOS
7. pass control to other specialized extension BIOSes (if installed)
8. identify, organize, and select which devices are available for booting
9. discover, initialize, and catalog all system buses and devices
10. provide a user interface for system's configuration
11. construct whatever system environment is required by the target operating system

Since you don't have RAM in the system, MoBo won't past the 4th step, letting you know there is an issue. Put RAM in and POST advances to further step. One of these steps, after memory check, is the issue for your PC. Which one? Well, take a guess. 😆

Now, POST is just one part of the whole PC booting process. The rest of the parts are:

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting#Boot_sequence

 

[Darkbreeze]

Sigh, a new PSU it is. And yes, I only mean it powers up to the point that the fans spin and the mobo is lit up. What I do find strange is that when the ram on the intel board wasn't plugged in properly it happily beeped away. I did try two different cables for both PSU plugged into another outlet.

Theoretically a new working psu should turn the PC 'on' correct?

Edit: Just realised something else, the a/c cable I use to power both the 450 and the 650 is also used for the current backup computer which works without any problems whatsoever. So it can't really be the cable I presume.

Edit 2: I know, stupid question, but why does it beep when the ram was not slotted in properly if it's killed everything off more or less?

"Complete" failures are a lot less common than partial failures. So a motherboard or power supply with "problems" can still appear to work in "some" ways and yet not in others or work but with problems.

Besides which, when there is no CPU and no memory installed, it is an automatic "do not go forward" with the POST process so that ALL it does is beep or show an error code depending on the board and whether there is a system speaker or Q-code display.

Did you try a different power outlet or different power strip? A different monitor? And by "cables" I am talking about the modular cables, not the main power cable when I asked if you used the same one with both power supplies and then said that couldn't be the problem since the CX430 isn't modular. What is this "backup" system and is using the same power delivery (outlet, power strip) as the other systems you've tested? This should be all done on it's own outlet away from any other power draw. Actually, probably on the bench and out of the case for that matter.

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[emjay.lee]

I'm rma mobo and gpu. Unfortunately I can't do it with the cpu and the ram. I've bought a new chassi and I guess will have to get a new psu. Damn this build got a hell of a lot more expensive than planned.